


Silhouettes & Cigarettes

by msmorie



Series: The Underneath [7]
Category: Jrock, X JAPAN
Genre: A Bunch of Original Characters, F/M, I don't like OCs but hopefully these aren't annoying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 30,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24518674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmorie/pseuds/msmorie
Summary: “Who did you lose?” Sugizo asked softly.He expected Taiji to snap at him and tell him to mind his own business, or deflect with some sort of smartass remark and skirt around the matter entirely, but Taiji only took another deep drag of his cigarette and exhaled very slowly, keeping his gaze on a spot far off in the distance. “It happened when I was young and stupid. Maybe I’ll tell you one day.”
Series: The Underneath [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1105776
Comments: 67
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**—ICHIKAWA, CHIBA—**

“Fumiyo! Hurry up!” Taiji glanced at the cheap digital watch on his wrist and banged on the door with his fist. “You’re gonna be late.”

“I’m not gonna be late,” came the muffled reply, and the door opened a few seconds later.

Taiji cast a critical eye over her. At 13, she was growing fast and he was glad that their mother had had the good sense to buy Fumiyo’s school uniform a couple of sizes larger. School stuff was expensive and he wasn’t sure he could afford to replace her school clothes if and when she outgrew them. Her hair was getting long and shaggy, too, he thought. When was the last time she’d had a haircut? Not in almost a year. Their mother had always done that for her and after she was gone, Taiji had tried cutting his sister’s hair himself. The ends hadn’t looked awful but her fringe ended up crooked and the more he tried to correct it, the worse it got. At least it had looked decidedly average once it had grown out, but he hadn’t dared to reach for the scissors again.

“What time did you get home last night?” Fumiyo asked while she tugged her school jumper over her head.

Taiji rummaged about in the fridge for something for her to bring for lunch. “2am.” Four hours ago. “Did I wake you?”

“No. Have you slept?”

“Yeah. A bit,” he lied. “I’ll be home late again tonight. Will you be okay?”

“Sure.”

“You really should get one of your friends to walk home with you.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ll have to feed yourself. Remember to brush your teeth before bed.”

“I will. I’ll leave some dinner for you in the fridge.”

“And lock the door and don’t open it for anyone you don’t know.”

“ _Taiji_.” Fumiyo looked him in the eye with a small smile. “Take care at work, okay?”

Taiji looked at her, swallowed a sigh, and handed her a couple of sandwiches. “Lunch.”

“Thanks!” She gave him a quick hug and tucked her lunch into her school bag, tugged her shoes on and left for school with a wave.

Barefoot, Taiji trudged out to the little balcony of their cramped apartment in the cheap end of town. A stray strand of hair caught in his mouth and he tugged it out impatiently. When was the last time _he’d_ had a haircut? It was getting almost as long as his sister’s and the blond was being replaced by black regrowth, but he liked to think that the rebellious ex-bosozoku look suited him. Along with his gruff demeanor, his tattoos and beat-up wardrobe, it meant that people were less likely to approach him, and that was perfectly fine with him. He wasn’t really a ‘people’ person.

He watched their elderly neighbour shuffle out onto her balcony to hang her laundry out to dry. Mrs Hamada was well into her seventies and had been good friends with their mother when she was still around. These days she made small conversation with Fumiyo the way elderly people did with younger people: you’re getting taller, how’s school, is your brother looking after you properly, that kind of thing. Taiji rarely spoke to Mrs Hamada himself. He never knew what to say to her besides ‘good morning’ or ‘good evening’ and it was just easier to hide a certain level of social ineptitude behind a façade of gruff indifference. The only exception was that ghastly day that Fumiyo had approached him, her face pale, looking like she wanted to cry. She had started her period. After a brief moment of freaking out himself, he had taken his sister next door where the kindly old woman calmed them down with some tea and sweets, sent Taiji down to the store to buy sanitary pads, and then sat down in the bathroom with Fumiyo to teach her how to use them.

“It’s all right, sweetie,” Mrs Hamada had said, putting an arm around the distressed girl’s shoulders. “The first time is always a shock. It takes getting used to."

Today the old woman didn’t appear to have seen him, though, so he left it at that and quietly went back inside.

His fingers itched for a cigarette. Smokes were a luxury that he could seldom afford. He’d dropped out of school at 15 and spent a year or so with the bosozoku looking for trouble. It was a great distraction from everyday life and their nonexistent father, until their mother was bedridden with some sort of respiratory infection and couldn’t work for over a month. That had been a huge wake up call for him. No work meant no money, and no money meant no food and no rent, so Taiji abandoned the bosozoku and found himself a part-time warehouse job to help their little family. Shift work was tiring, but the late shift was quiet and paid reasonably well, and it had served as a quick, albeit difficult, lesson in maturity and responsibility.

Then, six weeks into the job, he’d gotten into a fistfight with one of the older guys. It had been a petty disagreement, a difference in opinion on how best to tackle a particular shipment that ended up with the night shift foreman running in to separate them, Taiji bleeding from a cut in his lip and blood dripping from the other guy’s nose.

Taiji remembered sitting outside the foreman’s office and staring blankly at the closed door with his heart sinking through the pit of his stomach. He’d blown it. He was going to lose his job and he’d have to face his mother and his sister and tell them that he couldn’t hold down a simple warehouse job for two goddamn months. He wondered if this was how their father felt when he gave up on their family. He was seriously contemplating just walking out of there and saving himself the humiliation of having The Talk with the foreman when the door opened and the other guy walked back outside. Taiji could feel them looking at him, but he kept his own gaze firmly fixed on the floor.

“Sawada.”

Shit.

He looked up. The foreman was standing at the door, waving him in, and Taiji reluctantly got to his feet. It took a considerable amount of effort to move his body across the room and into the little office.

“Have a seat.”

Taiji did as he was told and kept his head down, waiting for the axe to fall.

“You gave Fujimori a pretty good nosebleed there,” the foreman—Egawa—remarked.

Taiji’s eyes skated off to the little wastepaper basket off to the side. It was half-full of big wads of bloodstained tissues, dark red blotches on white. He’d have been proud of that back in his bosozoku days. He was not proud of it now.

Egawa reached across the desk and offered Taiji a fresh tissue. “Here.”

The cut on his lip had already stopped bleeding but Taiji accepted the tissue anyway.

“So. Feel like talking about it?” Egawa asked.

The only response he received was a sullen shrug.

“Fujimori tells me you were disagreeing over something.”

“It was my fault,” Taiji said shortly. “I started it. I hit him first. I get it, I should be punished, I’m sorry. I’ll leave. If I can collect my last pay…” He started to get out of his chair.

“Whoa, hold on, hold on. Wait.”

Taiji stopped, and the foreman gave him a long look.

“Sit back down.”

Taiji sat.

“How old are you, son?”

What did that have to do with anything? “Um. 16,” he muttered.

“You got a family?”

“Yes. My mother and sister. She’s 11.”

Egawa nodded sagely. “Got one of those myself. Teenage daughter, I mean, not an 11-year old sister.”

Taiji gave a short, nervous chuckle at this.

“Look, Sawada,” Egawa said in a gentle but firm tone. “We can’t have people fighting in here. That’s just… it’s not on, you understand?”

“Yes. Sir.”

“I don’t want to know what it was about or how it started or who hit whom. Whatever it is, I want you to sort it out like an adult. Not just you, but Fujimori and everyone else. You got a problem you can’t solve, come to me. That’s what I’m here for. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Can I trust you not to do it again?”

Taiji started to nod and then he stared at Egawa while the pieces gradually connected in his head. “You aren’t firing me?”

“Not tonight. But that’s not to say that I won’t. This is your first strike. Fujimori as well. I’m sure your family is relying on you, and you can do whatever you like outside of work, but this—” Egawa rapped the desk emphatically, “—is a work place. First strike gets a warning. Two strikes is a week’s suspension. Three strikes and you’re out, understand?”

Taiji nodded slowly. “Yes sir. I understand.”

“All right.” Egawa stood up from his chair, and Taiji did the same. “I’d like you and Fujimori to stay away from each other for the rest of the night. I’ve put him on a different shipment for now. Take a 20-minute break to yourself. Walk it off, clean up that lip, keep your head down and your mouth shut, and finish your shift. I don’t want to have to send you home to tell your poor old mother and your kid sister that you’ve lost your job.”

After that, Taiji made a concerted effort to keep his temper in check. Sometimes it was a struggle not to lash out, verbally or otherwise, but Egawa’s parting words often repeated in his head, and he kept his head down, his mouth shut, and his hands busy, and there was no strike two. With the extra money, their little family was able to enjoy life a little more and sometimes their mother would come home with a treat for the siblings, or she’d cook a special meal for them all to enjoy, and they lived quite happily for the next two years.

Their mother’s health was often poor and pneumonia finally claimed her last winter. They hadn’t been able to afford a funeral, of course, so she was cremated and the remains were buried in a mass grave by the Ichikawa City municipality. Taiji left no time for mourning. He immediately went to his supervisor and asked for more shifts, which they were more than happy to give him but on a single income, things like rent, food, bills and school supplies meant that he and his sister were now living paycheck to paycheck. Fumiyo made her way to and from school on her own every morning and she usually prepared breakfast and dinner for the both of them as best she could. Taiji often wished he could walk her to school and pick her up, but most of the time he was working long hours at the warehouse packing and unpacking boxes and pallets for shipping. He also didn’t like the way Fumiyo’s classmates gave her funny looks whenever they saw him, as if he were some sort of unsavoury character. He didn’t personally care, but he didn’t want to give the other kids a reason to pick on her. She didn’t have many friends as it was. Kids could be so fucking cruel to each other.

Taiji opened the fridge again, looking for something to fill the hole in his stomach. There was some food that he’d bought on the way home last night (this morning) after work. Convenience stores always had some pretty good food that they were trying to get rid of once it was close to or just past expiry, and it was dirt cheap: sushi, soba, curry, sandwiches. He had a quick breakfast of hot tea and three onigiri. They were a bit stale but still tasted good, and food was food. He crawled back into bed after his meal. Best to catch a few more hours of sleep before work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
>  [Buckle up, kids!](https://a-pinkspider.tumblr.com/post/20726572125/jack-daniels-d)   
>  **


	2. Chapter 2

“‘Night guys. See you tomorrow.”

“‘Night.”

“Bye.”

“Seeya.”

“Good work today, Sawada.”

Taiji tucked the envelope securely in the inside pocket of his jacket, zipping up against the chill. Payday, and he’d gotten a small bonus as well. He already knew what he was going to do with the money: a treat for Fumiyo (her favourite caramel pudding), a treat for himself (cigarettes), and groceries. He had a rostered day off the day after tomorrow and was looking forward to cooking up a storm with his sister just like they used to when their mother was still around. He hadn’t told her yet, he wanted to surprise her. But then they had that overdue power bill… shit, better take care of that first, maybe forego the smokes as well. Winter was starting to set in and it would be brutal if they didn’t have any heating at home. He was tired but he was in a good mood and didn’t feel like he _needed_ a smoke anyway.

He was the only one who lived out this way and he made the forty-minute walk home alone in the dark. Sometimes he worried about being mugged, especially on payday but truth be told, people were more likely to give him a wide berth, thinking that _he’d_ be the mugger. Still, it always paid to be vigilant. The streets were usually dead at this time of the night but you never knew.

He was perhaps ten minutes from home when he heard shouting in the distance. Probably a bunch of drunk guys and he wouldn’t have given it a second thought except that he heard a woman’s voice amongst the din.

“I said _leave me alone!_ ”

“You need to come with us, Miss.”

“I don’t have to do anything!”

“Your fa—”

“Hey!” Taiji stopped a few metres away from them and frowned. “Are you all right, miss?”

“Mind your own business,” one of the guys in a black suit snapped. “Piss off.”

“Make me,” Taiji growled. “Can’t you see she doesn’t want to go with a couple of creeps like you?”

“We work for her father so shut up. Go stick your nose somewhere else.”

“Well she’s a big girl, and no means no,” Taiji said. “So leave her alone. Haven’t you got anything better to do than harass a young lady at this time of the night?”

“Better watch who you’re talking to,” said the second guy. He was bigger and taller than his friend, and in the dim glow of the streetlights Taiji saw the tattoos on their necks peeking out from their shirt collars.

“Don’t you know who we are?” said the first guy.

Taiji shrugged. “I know that you’re a couple of assholes giving this nice young lady a hard time.”

The bigger guy ignored him and seized the young woman’s arm. “We have orders, Miss. Let’s go.”

“Let go of me!” she cried, and this was followed by a muffled grunt when Taiji’s fist connected with the guy’s jaw, and then there was a mess of shouting and punching and they fell onto the ground in a heap of flailing limbs. Taiji caught a knee to the face and then he was being yanked backwards and choked and the three of them fell apart, tired and out of breath.

“Piss off and leave her alone,” Taiji growled, rubbing his throat where the collar of his t-shirt had throttled him.

The two guys in suits looked at each other and the smaller guy shook his head. “Let’s just go.”

“How’re we going to explain this to the boss?” asked his friend, rubbing his own face.

“We’ll tell him about this loser trying to be a fucking hero.” The short guy turned to the woman. “It would have been much easier if you just did as we asked, Miss.”

Casting a steely glare at Taiji, the pair disappeared into the darkness. The woman gave a soft sigh of relief and Taiji got a good look at her for the first time. She was about his age, quite pretty and very well-dressed. Some rich girl, if her clothes and those guys working for her father were anything to go by. He suddenly felt shabby and inadequate standing next to her. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you? Do you need to go to the police?”

There was something admonishing in the way that she looked at him right then. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Huh?” Taiji balked, confused. “But…”

Without another word, the young woman turned and left, and Taiji was left standing in the middle of the empty street like an idiot wondering what the fuck had just happened. He collected his thoughts and retraced his steps to continue on his way home. The more he thought about it, the less it made sense and the angrier he got. What was her goddamn problem? Hadn’t he helped her? Those guys were giving her trouble and fuck knows what they’d have done if he hadn’t stepped in. They could have hurt her or worse. What the fuck was wrong with people? You try to help and you get bitched out. You don’t help and you’re the asshole for turning a blind eye. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. With his good mood shot to pieces, he growled under his breath and headed through the doors of the first convenience store he saw, snatching up a tall can of beer while the store clerk hurried up to the register.

He banged the can on the countertop. “That. And a pack of Marlboros, too,” he said brusquely.

Even though he was still underage, he looked and dressed like he was older and the clerk rang up his beer and cigarettes, doing his best to avoid eye contact as though he thought Taiji might try to start a fight or rob them. What the hell was up with that? He was the good guy here!

Outside, he held the can of beer between his knees to free his hands so that he could light a cigarette. He took a couple of quick puffs and pressed the chilly can of beer against his face where he’d been hit. Ahh, there it was. Just what he needed. Fuck that ungrateful bitch. Fuck everyone.

It was nearly midnight by the time he got home. The whole apartment building was dark so he climbed the stairs and unlocked the door as quietly as he could, removing his shoes and tiptoeing inside the apartment to avoid waking his sister.

“You’re home early.”

Taiji blinked. Had he walked into the wrong apartment? In the darkness, the furniture looked all different and there was some short, fat person with a tiny head sitting by the balcony. After a second look he realised it was just Fumiyo, bundled up in layers of warm clothes. She’d dragged the table across the room and was studying by the dim orange glow of the streetlight outside their apartment.

“Shift ended early. You’re up late,” he countered. “Why have you got the lights out?”

He received his answer when he flipped the light switch on the wall a couple of times and nothing happened. The room stayed dark.

“There was no electricity when I got home.”

“Ah fuck. Sorry.” He was apologising more for having sworn in front of her than for their power being shut off. He did his best not to swear in front of her but sometimes the words would fall out of his mouth if he was frustrated or stressed. “Why didn’t you go next door if you wanted to study, instead of sitting in the dark?”

“I didn’t want to bother Mrs Hamada.” Fumiyo gave him a wane smile. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Why?”

She regarded him carefully. “Did something happen at work?”

“No,” he said gruffly. She didn’t need to know about the two thugs in suits and a selfish, thankless damsel in distress. “Look, it’s fine. I got paid today so I’ll pay the power bill tomorrow. Close your books and go to bed, kiddo. It’s late and you’re gonna ruin your eyes trying to read in the dark.”

Obediently, she packed up her school things, pushed the table back to its proper place and gave him a hug before retreating to her bedroom.

“Brushed your teeth?” he called after her.

“Yep! G’night.” The door closed.

“Good girl. Night.” He sighed. He needed to get to bed as well, but he was still too riled up and if he went to bed now, he’d just lie there tossing and turning. _You shouldn’t have done that_? Why the fuck not? Imagine if Fumiyo had been in that situation - he sure as hell would like someone to intervene, and he’d be grateful as fuck and so would she. Taiji tossed his empty beer can in the trash and quietly slipped out to the balcony, sliding the glass door closed behind him, and lit up another smoke. At the back of his mind, he knew he needed to make this pack last as long as he could, but it felt damn good. He finished up his cigarette, took a quick shower and crawled into bed, still scowling. Whatever, fuck that bitch. He didn’t care.

* * *

“Whoa, check it out! Got into another fight, eh, Sawada?” One of the other night shift guys, Asagiri, smirked and pointed at the bruise forming on Taiji’s cheek.

Taiji just grunted.

“What happened? Did you win?” a second guy pressed.

“Leave him alone, Haruno,” a third guy said.

“C’mon, what happened?” Asagiri asked, clapping Taiji on the shoulder, and that was all the encouragement he needed.

“I tried to do the right thing and got burned is what happened,” Taiji snapped. “Last night I saw this woman being harassed by a couple of dudes in suits, pulling her arms and shit, and she was yelling at them to leave her alone. So I told them to fuck off, and she turns and says I shouldn’t have done that and just fucking leaves. The fuck is wrong with this world where you get told off for trying to help someone? I mean, what would _you_ have done if you saw that?”

“Mind my own business,” Haruno said promptly.

“I’d call the cops. Let them deal with it,” Asagiri said.

The third guy, Nishimura, shook his head. “Nah, the cops are useless, man.”

Haruno agreed. “My aunt’s apartment got broken into last year. The crooks stole some cash and their TV, and her husband was beaten up. The cops didn’t do shit. They just asked her husband a bunch of dumb questions, looked around for five minutes and left. They never heard anything back. At least they got something back from insurance.”

“The whole thing was bullshit,” Taiji grumbled. “Those two guys kept saying they work for her dad and stuff. The whole family must be seriously screwed up.”

“What’d she look like?” Haruno asked. “Was she hot?”

“I dunno,” Taiji shrugged. “She was nice-looking, I guess. Really well-dressed, some rich bitch. The suits those guys wore looked kinda expensive, too.”

The night shift foreman usually didn’t like to get involved in petty gossip, but this time he spoke up. “Probably would have done well to stay away from that one, Sawada.”

Taiji frowned at Egawa. “You too?”

“What did those guys look like?” Egawa asked.

Taiji shrugged again. “Like I said. Two guys in expensive-looking suits. One tall, one short. I think they had tattoos on their arms.” He was a little surprised when the foreman started nodding.

“Thought so,” Egawa said. “You need to be more careful. Those tattoos? Could mean that they’re Yakuza. You really don’t want to step on their toes.”

An awkward silence fell over their little group for a few seconds and then Asagiri started up again.

“You’ve got balls of steel, dude,” he crowed. “Getting mixed up with a Yakuza princess!”

“All right, that’s enough!” Egawa ordered them to get back to work so the discussion ended there, but the others occasionally shot Taiji sneaky glances and whispered amongst each other. Taiji ignored them; let them gossip if they wanted to. He spent the rest of his shift grumbling to himself. Why bother being the good guy after all? It just gets you into trouble and people end up walking all over you, and there was no fucking way Taiji was going to be anyone’s doormat.

He finished his shift that night and on his way out, Nishimura fell into step beside him. Their breath came out in little clouds of vapour in the chilly night air.

“Hey, do you want in on this month’s poker game?”

Taiji thought about this for a second. “What’s the buy-in?”

“¥5,000 this time.”

“Oh.” Taiji frowned. “Then no. Sorry.”

“C’mon! The guys really wanted you to play,” Nishimura said. “Remember how well you did last time? I bet you’d win it all back real fast. You’re really good!”

“I can’t,” Taiji said. He was starting to get irritated.

“What if I pay half of your buy-in? ¥2,500? You don’t have to pay me back if you don’t make the ¥5,000 back.”

Pause. He _had_ enjoyed the last few friendly poker games, drinking and playing cards and talking shit with a bunch of pretty cool guys, and he _had_ walked away with some decent winnings - nothing that made a huge difference, but enough to help pay off a bill or two on time. “You sure?”

“Sure!”

“Well… okay,” Taiji said cautiously. “If you’re sure. Thanks.”

Nishimura gave him a thumbs up. “Same place as last time. 12pm Sunday. See you there?”

“Yeah. Guess I’ll see you there.”


	3. Chapter 3

Taiji squinted in the late morning sun. It was already uncomfortably warm and humid for June and, clad in just a tank top and cargo shorts, the heat was baking right through the bare skin of his arms and legs. Looking around, he waited for a couple of cars to pass before crossing the street, and he made a concerted effort to stay in the dappled shade of the trees to get out of the worst of the harsh sun. This summer was going to be a bad one.

“Sawada!” one of the regular poker players, Aoki, greeted him as soon as he arrived.

The basement of the pachinko parlour was pleasantly cool in comparison to the thick summer heat outside. Taiji helped himself to a beer from the fridge and pulled one of the folding chairs away from the table to take his seat. The rubber caps on the chair legs had worn away years ago and the exposed steel scraped against concrete. Aside from Aoki, he knew two other regulars—Sasaki and Komatsu—but there was one face he didn’t recognise.

“Who’s the new guy?”

The guy to Sasaki’s left extended a hand with a friendly grin. “Ogata. Nice to meetcha. I’m a friend of Sasaki’s. He tells me you’re a real shark.”

“We’ve got a few replacements for this round. Inaba couldn’t make it,” Sasaki explained. “Some relative of his is getting married.”

“Imagine passing up monthly poker for your cousin’s wedding,” Aoki joked.

“Oh.” Through the haze of cigarette smoke swirling in the air conditioned room, Taiji’s gaze fell upon the two remaining chairs that were still unclaimed. “What about Nishimura and Tachibana?”

Sasaki and Komatsu exchanged a glance, and Aoki paused in shuffling the deck of cards. “Um, you haven’t spoken to Nishimura recently?”

“No,” Taiji said warily. They rarely discussed poker at work, and Nishimura hadn’t mentioned that he _wasn’t_ coming to this month’s poker game so Taiji had just assumed that he’d be there, like he had for every single game before that.

“He said he lost so badly the last few times that he’s calling it quits. Same with Tachibana. Said the stakes are getting too high and he couldn’t afford to keep playing.”

“Oh,” Taiji said again. That was going to put a damper on things. Maybe he could talk to Nishimura and bail him out with his own winnings to get him back in the game, just like the guy had done for him a while back.

“I asked around and got a couple of guys I work with to— hey, speak of the devil!” Komatsu waved a couple of strangers in and showed them to the vacant chairs at the table. “Everyone, this is Ichinose and Nobu. Ichinose and Nobu: everyone.”

The rest of the little group mumbled their greetings and waved across the table or shook hands.

Nobu claimed the empty chair next to Taiji. “Nice tatts.”

Ichinose agreed. “That dagger is sick, bro.”

“Oh. Thanks,” Taiji said a little awkwardly. He wasn’t used to receiving compliments, especially not for his tattoos. “Yours are cool, too.”

“Yo, are we done checking each other out?” Aoki barked and started dealing cards and chips. “Let’s get this started already. You know how it works, gentlemen! ¥8,000 buy-in, let me see your money…”

* * *

“Hey! Nishimura!”

Nishimura stopped and turned, and waited patiently for Taiji to catch up.

“Been meaning to talk to you all night,” Taiji said.

“Oh yeah?”

“We missed you at poker the other day.”

“Oh.” Nishimura’s face fell. “Yeah. Sorry, I’m out for good. I should have told you earlier.”

“Why? Just because you lost a couple of times. That’s part of the thrill, isn’t it?”

Taiji was surprised at how crestfallen Nishimura looked. The guy was several years older than he was, but right now he looked a couple of decades older.

“It wasn’t just those couple of times, man. A little bit here and a little bit there adds up real fast, and I got burnt bad last month. Really bad.”

“It’s okay, I can buy your way back in…” Taiji was trying to be encouraging, but Nishimura shook his head.

“You don’t get it! I can’t pay for our son’s medical bills. When my wife found out I’d lost that much money on cards, she wanted to divorce me. I spent that night sleeping on a goddamn park bench so that she could calm down because Koji wouldn’t stop crying with all the screaming going on! And so right then and there I decided: no more. I’m not gonna dig myself even deeper. That is _it_.”

Taiji stalled. On the one hand, he absolutely understood what it was like to be so poor that you couldn’t pay the bills or put food on the table. But at the same time, his own modest poker winnings had allowed him to put a little money away into savings every month. Savings! A year ago, even having a tiny slice of disposable income felt extravagant, but now he had _savings_. He was still poor, but not dirt poor.

“Taiji, I’m only saying this because I think of you as a friend: if you’re smart, you’ll do the same thing. Quit while you’re ahead. Don’t dig yourself into a hole and hurt your family like I did.” Nishimura hung his head. “I wish I never got either of us into this mess.”

  
  


Taiji did not heed his friend’s advice. The next month in July, he took home his biggest winnings to date, earning him envious looks from the rest of the players, and he celebrated his 20th birthday by taking Fumiyo out for a steak dinner. They’d never had such an incredible feast: thick, juicy slabs of meat glistening with fat, each with a pat of rich herbed butter on top, deliciously seared on the outside, moist and tender and just the right shade of pink on the inside, with a basket of fragrant, crusty garlic bread for them to share. It was almost too good to eat, but they finished off every bite (Taiji had had to help Fumiyo finish hers) and even mopped up the remaining pools of sauce with the bread.

Every now and then, just like anyone else, he would lose a few hands here and there but he always managed to make it back eventually. By the end of the year, he’d lost it all.

* * *

Sitting on his knees on the floor of his bedroom, heart pounding with fear, Taiji stopped and stared, then reached into the tin and started counting the money again, even though he knew it was pointless. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine thousand. ¥9,000. That was all that was left of his savings. A few short months ago, this tin had been full of money. Where had it all gone?

He knew exactly where it had all gone. That was the problem. He was the only one who knew where this tin and its precious bounty was hidden, and he was the one who had spent the money inside. For better or for worse, it wasn’t _all_ his fault. By a stroke of very bad luck, the fridge at home died in August, right in the middle of a very hot and humid summer. Even buying a second-hand fridge had taken a decent chunk out of his savings, and he also had to pay someone to get rid of the old fridge. The siblings were stuck eating non-perishable food like canned fish with rice or cup ramen until the new fridge arrived. Then on top of using his pay towards the usual expenses—food, rent, utility bills, clothes and school supplies for Fumiyo—he’d lost badly at poker, dipped into his savings to buy into the next game, lost again. The buy-in kept steadily crawling up so Ichinose helped him buy into the next game and the next, and he lost that as well.

The ever-increasing stress of losing money and the desperate pressure to win it back made him play badly, and led him to spend more money on cigarettes and booze. He did his best not to show this at home or at work, but it was obvious when he came home reeking of cigarettes, or showed up to work slightly drunk and snapping at everyone. Nishimura wasn’t even there any more; soon after his chat with Taiji, he’d packed up his wife and kid and moved away to find a different job.

It was December. Fumiyo’s birthday was coming up on the 88th, only a couple of days away, and he’d promised with his hand over his heart that he’d take her to Disneyland. It was the only thing she had ever asked for, and even then she had been very timid in approaching him about it. She was all too aware of how much it would cost and she chose her words very carefully, posing it as a suggestion rather than a request. He couldn’t say no to her and he knew she would have loved it, but there was no way they could afford it now. He wouldn’t be paid until the end of the month and even then, he wouldn’t have enough for a trip to Disneyland. Until then, they had to survive on only ¥9,000. He slumped on the floor. He actually felt like crying. Taiji never cried. When he was little, he didn’t cry when he fell over or hurt himself while playing with his friends. When he was 8, he didn’t cry when their father left. When their mother died, he had been heartbroken but he didn’t cry. He sighed deeply and covered his face with both hands. The little voice inside his head told him this was exactly what Nishimura had warned him about, telling him to quit before he got this point, but Taiji pushed it away. He could still claw his way back but for now he needed to deal with the problem at hand. He closed the box and tucked it back into its hiding place under the bottom drawer of his wardrobe.

Fumiyo was sitting at the kitchen table with her back to him, doing her homework. It was cold and their modest little heater was struggling to keep the place warm, so she was wearing a few extra layers. He stood there watching her for a little while. Every so often, she’d let go of her pen and flex her fingers, stiff from the cold. She was a good student, quiet and conscientious, well-liked by her teachers from what he heard, and she studied hard, probably because she didn’t have a lot of friends to distract her. He was trying hard as well, but she deserved so much more than he could give her. She certainly deserved someone better than her loser high school dropout brother looking after her. It was the weekend and she should have been hanging out with a big group of friends, eating crepes filled with fruit and cream, and gushing over their favourite idols.

He walked up behind her and stroked her hair. “How’re you doing, kiddo?”

“Good. I have a big science test on Monday.” She twirled her pen through her fingers and shifted in her seat, tucking one leg beneath her and swinging her other leg.

He sat down at the chair next to her and she looked up at him thoughtfully. “Something wrong?”

Bite the bullet. Man up and tell her. “So. Your birthday’s coming up.”

Fumiyo beamed. “Yep!”

“Um… I’m really sorry but… there’s um…” he gulped. “There’s been some major cutbacks at work. I know we promised to take you to Disneyland but I… with all the stuff that’s happening at work and getting a new fridge, we can’t afford it. I promise I’ll make it up to you. As soon as I can. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

He already felt like the world’s biggest asshole saying this, but seeing his sister’s innocent smile freeze and falter made the lie feel even worse. 

“I’m so sorry, Fumiyo.”

“Oh! No. I understand.” She affected a casual shrug. “It wasn’t like I had my heart set on it or anything. I just thought it would be… you know, something fun for us to do. I know how hard you work and I thought maybe you could relax and unwind and have some fun, you know?”

She did her best to smile and look nonchalant about it, as if Taiji couldn’t tell that she was disappointed in him. He turned away, too ashamed to look at her. God, what if she knew? What if she knew how much he’d saved and then subsequently gambled away? He could feel her piercing gaze on him, seeing right through his lies.

_You couldn’t even do one thing for your sister. She’s the only family you have and you couldn’t keep one lousy promise. Don’t you care about her?_

Of course I care about her! That’s why I work so goddamn hard!

_That’s why you picked up this shitty gambling habit._

Taiji swallowed the lump in his throat. “Okay um, well… I gotta head off to work. Don’t study too hard. You should take a break.”

She smiled and nodded. “I will.”

His mind was so preoccupied that the entire walk to work was made on autopilot. He barely even felt the December chill until he roused himself to clarity about a block away, and from here he could see someone standing in the shade of a tree just outside the gate. The person looked up as he approached.

It was Ichinose, the guy from poker. “Sorry, didn’t want to bother you at work. Just wondering when you’ll be paying that money back.”


	4. Chapter 4

Taiji slowed his pace and his eyes darted left and right. Instinct told him to look for an escape route even though he knew there was no getting away. Like they always say in movies, you can run but you can’t hide.

“Hi,” he said cautiously. “What are you doing here?”

Ichinose gave him an apologetic smile but to Taiji it was dripping with venom and insincerity, and it was at this moment that he understood that he was in very deep shit.

“Hey, Sawada!” he said with a little wave. “Sorry, I didn’t want to have to bother you at work. I was just wondering when you’ll be paying that money back.”

Fuck.

“I know, I know, I’ve kind of been asking you a few times,” Ichinose went on with a self-deprecating laugh. “But it’s been a while now and I kind of need it back, if you don’t mind. Bills to pay and all that. You know how it is.”

Taiji shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and shifted about uncomfortably. “Yeah. Sorry. Look, about that… things have been really tight lately and there were some, uh, unforeseen expenses and I—”

“—don’t have the money?” Ichinose’s eyes glittered and his tone was chilly.

“Y-yeah,” Taiji muttered. “Sorry. Really, I am...” He trailed off when Ichinose put an arm around his shoulders and Taiji did his best not to cringe away.

“I’ll level with you, Sawada. Where I come from, we’re all friends. We’re like a family. And we like to help each other out, you know? Do favours for a friend in need. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. But it’s all about mutual respect, isn’t it? If a friend can’t return the favour, well, that’s a slap in the face. Can _you_ respect someone who doesn’t respect you back?”

It was a rhetorical question but, frozen in place, Taiji could only shake his head mechanically.

“Exactly. I knew you’d get it. So I’m going to make this very clear, okay?” Ichinose lowered his voice. “You’ve got three months to pay me back in full. All of it. Three months. Do you understand?”

Ichinose stepped back and Taiji flinched when the man started pushing his sleeves up. What he saw, however, made a fistfight vastly more preferable. It was something that had been staring him in the face the whole time and he’d gotten so complacent that he hadn’t connected the dots. The tattoos that Ichinose and his friend Nobu bore, the tattoos that he’d looked at dozens of times over several poker games, the tattoos _he’d complimented them on_ , weren’t just regular tattoos like his own. They were fucking Yakuza tattoos. These guys were from the mob and he fucking owed them a lot of money.

Taiji tried to swallow but his mouth and throat had gone as dry as paper. “Yes. I understand.”

“Good.” Ichinose smiled again and tugged his sleeves back down, covering his tattoos up. “I’m glad to see that we’re on the same page. When you’re ready to start paying me back, you know where to find me.”

The duration of Taiji’s shift was spent in silence but his mind was running on overdrive. Fucking Yakuza. People fucking died or were tortured if they couldn’t pay back what was due, family members were kidnapped and held to ransom, body parts were chopped off and mailed to relatives, pets disappeared from their homes and the owner might receive a bloodstained collar in the mail or worse, a gift-wrapped corpse. The mob was fucking everywhere, masquerading under the guise of legitimate businessfronts and charities, and there was no getting away from them. Even if the debt was paid, people often remained chained to the Yakuza to be exploited over and over again, simply because they were too afraid to say no. If they ran, the Yakuza would simply track them down again.

It struck him that he’d never mentioned where he worked to the guys at poker, just that he worked at a warehouse, but that didn’t mean that Ichinose or Komatsu hadn’t asked the other guys. If they could find where he worked, then they could find out where he lived as well. It was entirely likely that he’d mentioned his sister in passing conversation, just casually. What if they broke into their home and grabbed Fumiyo? The very thought of them dragging her away and hurting her made him want to break something. What was wrong with him? Why was the Yakuza always fucking haunting him? First that incident with that girl last year, and now _this?_

He almost jumped when someone put a hand on his shoulder during his break, but it was only Egawa, the night shift foreman.

“You all right, son?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Taiji said hastily. “Yeah I… I’m fine. You gave me a fright, that’s all.”

“You look a little upset.” There was concern all over the older man’s face. “Is something the matter?”

_I’m in trouble with the mob?_ Yeah, right. Taiji scrambled to make up an excuse. “Just… stuff at home. Some unexpected expenses,” he said with a lame shrug.

“That’s no good,” Egawa said sympathetically.

Taiji bit his lip and nodded. “Um, this might be a weird question. But is there any chance I could get an advance on my pay for the whole month?”

Egawa frowned. “Sorry, I can’t do that. Company policy. But I could pay you out for the past two weeks instead of waiting until the end of the month if that helps?”

The imaginary noose around Taiji’s neck slackened just a fraction. “That would be amazing, sir. If that’s really all right with you. I don’t want to get you in trouble or anything…”

“No, no, that’s fine. Come by my office when you knock off for the night.” Satisfied that he had helped a good employee—or so he had thought—Egawa gave Taiji an encouraging smile and moved on.

Taiji breathed an inward sigh of relief. Two weeks’ pay wouldn’t be nearly enough to pay off his debt, but it was more than enough to join the next poker game and win back some dough. He had a plan. He could do this.

* * *

Taiji walked into the December poker game feeling confident… until he scanned the faces sitting around the table.

“Where’s…”

“Ogata and Sasaki? They dropped out,” said Komatsu. He didn’t even look up from shuffling the cards but Taiji eyed him warily. He had no tattoos, that was for sure, but he had said that he knew Nobu and Ichinose from ‘work’ and that meant that he couldn’t be trusted, either.

“Yeah, it’s a real shame,” Aoki said, shaking his head. “Sasaki’s been in this game with me since the beginning, you know? And Ogata was a pretty cool dude. Inaba said he’s not coming back, either,” he added.

“So we looped in a couple of our buddies to make up the numbers,” Nobu said.

The two new guys stood up and shook Taiji’s hand, introducing themselves as Yamato and Matsukawa. This time he did notice their tattoos, and he realised with a sinking heart that they matched Nobu and Ichinose’s. So these guys were from the mob as well. The only ones who weren’t were Aoki and himself. Aoki looked like he was blissfully unaware, but Taiji had a sneaking suspicion that Ogata, Sasaki and Inaba had wised up and had made themselves scarce - a very sensible move on their part, Taiji thought bitterly. If only he’d had the same foresight and listened to his old pal Nishimura, he wouldn’t be in this mess.

Taiji played the best game he’d played in months: he’d won one round with a straight flush of diamonds, and another round with a full house, and the overall mood of the game was jovial and friendly, with even Ichinose giving him a few encouraging words as though he hadn’t threatened him recently. After the game concluded, Taiji rifled through his winnings. It was a decent win by any definition, but it was a fraction of what he owed Ichinose. He reluctantly handed the money over and Ichinose gave him a bland smile, congratulated him on a good game and they parted ways. From around the corner, Taiji watched as the five Yakuza members—Komatsu, Ichinose, Nobu, and now Matsukawa and Yamato—walked off together. He wondered if he should warn Aoki, but he’d hurried off to catch a train and Taiji didn’t have his phone number, either. Aoki was a perfectly average poker player - he never won big and he didn’t like to take risks, but his losses were small, too. Taiji hoped he would be okay.

He got his answer at the next poker game in January. Aoki had dropped out and was replaced by some guy named Hamasaki Sho, and this guy had ‘gangster’ written all over him. His greying hair was carefully slicked back and the loose white shirt he wore underneath his slightly too-large navy blue suit was unbuttoned half-way down his chest, revealing a couple of inches of ornate tattoos. Taiji shook his hand unhappily, staring at the thick gold rings on his bony, tobacco-stained fingers. He was glad that Aoki wasn’t here, but now he was the only loser left in this fucking snake pit, surrounded by crooks on all sides. He could only hope that Aoki had wised up after the last game and left of his own volition. He hated to think that such a friendly guy might have met some sort of gruesome end at the hands of the Yakuza.

This month’s winnings were small and Taiji began to feel the panic seeping back in, that he might not be able to pay it all back by the end of February.

“Hey, Ichinose,” Taiji called. The six Yakuza stopped and looked at him. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure!” Ichinose broke away from the group, and they moved off a little distance. Taiji could hear the telltale _snap-snap-snap_ of someone sparking the flint on a lighter.

“Listen.” He licked his lips nervously. “I’m trying, I really am, but I… I don’t know if I’m going to be able to pay it all back by next month.”

Ichinose had started shaking his head as soon as he said ‘but’.  
“I’m not saying I’m _not_ going to pay it back!” Taiji said quickly. “I’m just asking for more time. Please. I’m trying.”

The older man took a step back and regarded him with a long-suffering sigh and put his hands in his pockets. Taiji almost broke out in a cold sweat, thinking he was going to pull a gun or a knife or something, but Ichinose only produced a lighter of his own and lit a cigarette, drawing the smoke into his lungs while Taiji stood there sweating.

“Fine. Only because I’m feeling nice. I’ll give you an extension of another three months. You have until the end of May and I’m telling you, I want all of it, you hear?” He leaned in close and Taiji could practically taste the stale cigarette smoke on his breath, saw the teeth discoloured by years of smoking, saw the lines and pores in his skin. “Every single yen. No more extensions, dipshit.”

Taiji bristled at this childish insult but dread had him frozen to the spot even as Ichinose started walking back to his friends.

“See you next time, Sawada Taiji.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Better move that ass, Sawada.”

Taiji wiped the sweat out of his eyes and said nothing, just kept loading crates into the van, avoiding eye contact with anyone where he could. The glass bottles clinked against each other and someone else barked at him to be more careful.

Despite having been granted an extension, Taiji wasn’t able to pay back all of the money to Ichinose. He’d been terrified that they were going to kill him on the spot or drag him away to a filthy room where he’d be gagged and beaten, or chopped up into pieces like they did in all the gangster movies. They did take him away, to a big building across town where Nobu had a quick word with an older, bald guy who had taken one look at Taiji and started howling with laughter. Taiji found him incredibly annoying. His laugh was high-pitched and nasally and he cackled like an old woman, and he knew that he was the subject of this guy’s mirth.

“I hear you used to work at a shipping warehouse,” the bald guy said, looking at Taiji up and down.

“I do,” Taiji retorted.

“Not anymore!”

Taiji paled. “Wh-what?”

“You’re going to quit your job and you’ll be working at _our_ warehouse now,” Ichinose said pointedly. “Get it?”

Taiji did get it. He was being forced to work for the Yakuza to pay off his debt. He felt the noose around his neck tighten but what could he do? He had no choice, it was this or suffer a worse punishment. It wasn’t like he could bundle his sister up and do a runner like his old friend Nishimura had when _he_ quit playing poker. So, with a crowd of heavily-tattooed men watching, Taiji reluctantly signed the contract and became a slave to the mob.

That night, Egawa had been stunned when Taiji said he was resigning, effective immediately. Was something wrong? Was he unhappy working there? Taiji shook his head.

“I’ve found something else.” The words tasted bitter in his mouth.

“Taiji, you’ve one of my best employees. You know that, right? Most night shift guys don’t last a year but you’ve been here for three and only taken one sick day! If it’s the pay you’re not happy with, I’m sure we can work someth—”

“No!” Taiji practically shouted, and Egawa looked like he’d been punched in the gut. “I… I’ve got it all worked out.”

_I don’t know what to do._

“I’m fine.”

_I’m scared._

“Thank you for everything.”

_Somebody please help me._

Taiji ground his teeth and loaded another crate into the van. He’d been working for the Yakuza for four weeks now, helping them ship and smuggle cannabis and bootlegged alcohol and god knows what else that he didn’t want to know about. His pay was a fraction of what he’d have gotten at his old job but they assured him that they were only withholding a portion of his pay until his debt was clear.

He didn’t utter a peep of this to his sister, of course. And he made damn well sure that he never spoke about her around these thugs. They could do anything to him but they weren’t going to lay a finger on Fumiyo.

A sharp whistle sounded, signalling the start of their 30-minute break. Taiji loaded one last crate of unlabelled whisky onto the van and slammed the door shut. The van’s brake lights flared red for a second and drove off.

He opened the fridge in the break room and paused. He bent down and moved a few items out of the way, checked the other shelves. No, it was definitely gone. Someone had taken his ‘dinner’ and he would have to go the rest of the shift hungry. He sighed. This was the fourth time in two weeks. If it had been his old workplace, he wouldn’t have thought twice about demanding who had taken his food. If it had been his old workplace, nobody would have touched his stuff in the first place.

He bit back a groan of frustration and helped himself to a bottle of tea, parking himself under a tree away from the rest of the group, watching people come and go. Three of the guys walked past him and smirked.

“Not hungry tonight, Sawada?” one of them jeered.

Taiji only gave him a withering glare and turned his attention to the car that had just pulled up at the end of the block. Probably another inspection. Once or twice a week, the higher ups would send someone to walk the site and check that everything was in order. This time was different, Taiji noticed with mild interest. The car was nicer, a shiny black BMW, and two guys in black suits emerged. Instead of walking straight to the site, one of them opened the rear door and a smartly-dressed woman stepped out. A hush quickly fell over the workers on site and they shuffled about and looked at their feet. Taiji watched the woman and the two bodyguards flanking her as she spoke to the site supervisor. He hurried inside and produced a ledger, bowing deeply as he presented this to the woman. The woman was leafing through the ledger, nodding frequently while the supervisor kept talking at her. Taiji smirked to himself. It was obvious that she wasn’t listening to the guy. Finally she closed the ledger and handed it back to the supervisor with a blank expression, and Taiji felt like he had been slapped in the face.

_“You shouldn’t have done that.”_

He watched her conduct her inspection and it was clear that she didn’t honestly care. The supervisor and foreman kept hovering about her, telling her how well this was going, or how high the profits of that was, and she barely acknowledged them. She swept past Taiji without even looking at him, cast a cursory glance at a few things, and then turned and headed back to her waiting car.

“Is that all, Miss?” the supervisor wheedled. “Are you sure you don’t want to see—”

“I’m sure,” she said shortly.

She looked like such a fucking cliché with the two guys in sharp suits walking on either side of her, the expensive high heels, the long, perfectly-styled hair, impeccably dressed with a long coat draped over her shoulders despite how warm the evening was. _This_ was the selfish, thankless rich bitch and he should have been angry but he found himself getting up and following her.

“H-hey,” he called. “Excuse me.”

She kept walking as though she hadn’t heard him, so he called out to her again.

“Excuse me! Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Hey,” said a gruff voice, and one of the guys in suits descended on him and gave him a shove in the chest. “Back off.”

“I just want to t—”

“This is the boss’ daughter,” the other guy barked.

“Stop that,” the woman ordered, and the two guys immediately backed off.

“Apologies, Miss.”

The woman gave Taiji a level look. “Have we met?”

Taiji nodded. “I… I think so.”

She looked over him thoughtfully for a few seconds and then turned to her two bodyguards. “Wait for me in the car.”

“But Miss, he—”

“We’re just going to talk.”

They bowed and quickly left, and she sighed.

Taiji was impressed. “Must be nice to get to boss people around.”

The woman just gave him a withering look. “C’mon. Let’s go this way.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes. It was quiet at this time of night; it was an industrial area and most of the businesses were closed. Eventually they stopped and the woman produced a shiny Zippo lighter and lit up a cigarette. She must have caught him looking at her enviously, for she handed him the pack of cigarettes.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, fingering his own cheap plastic lighter.

“What did you want to talk about?” she asked.

“Um, well…” he scrambled for something to say. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. “I uh, just wanted to make sure you were okay. I guess. I don’t know.”

There was another long, awkward silence.

“Sorry. My name’s Kasumi. Yamashiro Kasumi.”

“Sawada Taiji.” He glanced at her sideways. “Are you really a Yakuza princess?”

“Princess?” she scoffed.

He didn’t know how to respond to the undisguised scorn in her voice, so instead he said, “Do you mind if I ask what happened that night?”

Kasumi took a long drag of her cigarette. “They were taking me somewhere I didn’t want to go. Not those two,” she added, pointing her cigarette in the direction where they’d left her car. “Different guys. Those two are actually okay.”

“Oh,” Taiji said quietly. He felt stupid and naïve. There was so much he didn’t know about the world.

“So.” Kasumi pursed her lips. “How’d _you_ get mixed up in all of this?”

How indeed. He was about to answer when they heard a shout, and one of Kasumi’s keepers was waving at her. She sighed and snuffed out her cigarette.

“I’d better go. Don’t want to disappoint _Father_.” Her tone was heavy with sarcasm and she started walking away.

“Wait!” he called, holding out the pack of cigarettes. “This is yours—”

“Keep it, Taiji.”

He watched her getting into the car and they drove away into the night.

* * *

Taiji found himself fascinated by Kasumi. Imagine being that rich and powerful! He couldn’t begin to fathom what it would be like to be able to just throw money at your problems—hell, never having to even _think_ about money—and to have people at your beck and call.

A few of the guys who had seen Taiji approaching the boss’ daughter began to whisper, and soon they were all whispering about it. He said nothing to feed these rumours. Let them talk if they wanted to. He’d probably never see her again anyway. She’d be prancing about in a massive mansion with servants to do her bidding, and the biggest problem she’d have to worry about was which shoes to wear with which handbag, and which car to buy next. He couldn’t stop thinking about what she said, though: _They were taking me somewhere I didn’t want to go_. Who could make the daughter of a Yakuza boss go somewhere she didn’t want to go? After some thought, he concluded that the answer was simple: the only person who could impose orders on the Yakuza boss’ daughter was the Yakuza boss himself. This only further stirred Taiji’s curiosity about Kasumi and he kept an eye out, hoping to see her again.

His wish was granted a little over a week later and she arrived in the same fashion she had before, in the shiny BMW, wearing designer clothing with the same two keepers at her side. She followed the same routine, glancing at the ledger while the supervisor blathered on, trying to impress her, and then taking a cursory walk around but as she approached him, Taiji held the cigarette pack out to her. “You forgot this.”

She looked down at the slightly crumpled box. “No, it’s okay. I told you. Keep it.”

“I don’t like taking anything that doesn’t belong to me,” he said stubbornly.

Kasumi gave him a look of mild amusement and, after a moment’s hesitation, took it back. “All right, then.”

She finished her rounds and left, and everybody went back to work, and the whispers started up again.

“What’s going on between you and the boss’ daughter, then?” someone shouted.

“Trying to get in her pants?” someone else yelled.

Taiji ignored these jibes and concentrated on his work, so much so that he didn’t notice when everybody fell quiet again, and then someone tapped his shoulder.

“Is your name Sawada?” It was one of Kasumi’s keepers.

“Uh. Yes?” Taiji looked around and gulped. Was he in trouble for talking to the boss’ daughter? What would the penalty be? Broken fingers, broken arms?

“This way, please.”

All eyes were on him as he followed the guy in the suit, looks of suspicion, or glee, or jealousy, he couldn’t tell. He followed the guy off site and around the corner, where the glossy BMW sat with its engine idling, and Kasumi was there waiting for him.

She smiled. “Want to go for a drink?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're all still hanging in there! My city is still in hard lockdown but I'm keeping myself busy editing my Problem Child Project (which has been whipped into shape quick smart) and adding bits here and there to make it more betterer and to combat the old 'oh my god this sucks' feeling 😬  
> It's also gotten mighty quiet around here in the past few months in terms of authors posting/updating - we miss you and hope you're ok!


	6. Chapter 6

Taiji balked at the doorway of the expensive-looking bar and Kasumi stared at him. “What?”

“Well… I don’t think I can afford to go to a place like this.” He kept his head down, embarrassed, but Kasumi only laughed and told him not to be stupid, taking his arm and leading him inside. One of the bouncers stepped forward as though to stop him, but retreated and bowed as soon as he recognised who Taiji was with.

“You know that guy?” Taiji asked, pointing his thumb at the bouncer.

“Yeah,” Kasumi shrugged. “I come here a lot when I need some time away from… stuff. What are you drinking?”

“Uhm… nothing. I’m fine.”

“Are you serious?” She flagged a bartender down and looked at Taiji expectantly.

“Um… maybe just a beer?”

“Two beers on my tab, please, and not the cheap stuff.”

Taiji tried to protest. “No, just a regu—” but the bartender had already disappeared.

Kasumi looked upon him with amusement. “What’s wrong with you?”

Feeling extremely self-conscious, Taiji asked, “What do you mean?”

“It’s just a beer! Why do you have such an aversion to people doing nice things for you?”

Taiji stalled. She wasn’t wrong. “I… I dunno.”

“Is it something to do with why you’re working _there_?”

After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded unhappily. He didn’t know why, but he felt like he could trust her, but then their stilted conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the bartender and Kasumi took a big swig of her beer.

“Sorry. I’ve been meaning to thank the guy who tried to save me. So… thank you, Taiji.” She tapped her beer bottle against his. “Your heart’s in the right place.”

“I guess that makes us square?” He tried a lame joke, but her face turned stony.

“I fucking hate that shit. If I’m going to do something for someone, it’s because I _want_ to do it. Not because I expect something in return.”

Taiji was becoming more and more impressed with this Yamashiro Kasumi as the night wore on. Here was a full-blooded member of the Yakuza, born and bred, rich and powerful, and a woman to boot. She was smart and perceptive, she could really hold her liquor, and she was trapped in this hellhole, just like he was.

“ _I’m_ not rich,” she said dryly over their third round of beers. “My dad is. And it’s not like Yamashiro is an ancient family. Wanna know the truth? That night you swooped in and saved my life? I was on my way to meet my future husband. The man of my fucking dreams.”

She said this with such bitterness and Taiji realised what she meant: an arranged marriage.

“Anyway. After a lot of screaming at home, I did end up meeting him eventually. Couldn’t avoid it.”

“How did it go?”

“Just great, considering I’m being forced to marry this guy just because his dad’s richer than mine.” Kasumi placed her near-empty beer bottle on a coaster. “Anyway. What are you in for?”

Taiji used one finger to draw lines in the condensation of his own beer bottle. “I’m… up to my neck in debt,” he said quietly. “Got started playing poker with a bunch of guys. All really good guys, at first. Made a few pretty good wins, too. Then some people left and some new people came in. I started losing, and losing some more. Borrowed money from someone to buy in and keep playing. I couldn’t pay him back and… turns out he’s Yakuza. So they forced me to work here until it’s paid off.” Taiji drained the rest of his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “But hey, it could be worse, right? They could have killed me or chopped my hands off. Or forced me to marry some random guy.”

Kasumi scoffed. “Did I mention he’s ten years older than me?”

“Christ.”

“It’s not like I hate him or anything,” Kasumi added. “It’s just… he’s just there. Hell, this beer has more personality than he does. He’s nice enough but he just does what he’s told. No wonder he’s 33 and never had a girlfriend.”

Taiji laughed.

“I’m serious! He doesn’t have a single thought in his head that wasn’t put there by someone else.”

Taiji regarded her carefully. “Not like you.”

Kasumi held his gaze for a moment and smiled.

  
  


They parted ways not long after finishing their drinks. Kasumi thanked him for helping her get away from ‘stuff’ and tried to insist on driving him home, but he refused. It wouldn’t be appropriate, he said. She was the boss’ daughter and she shouldn’t be seen with someone like him, especially not driving around at this time of night. After some back and forth she finally relented, but not before tossing a pack of cigarettes at him. He laughed to himself as the car pulled away.

It would take over an hour for him to walk home from here, but he didn’t mind. Fumiyo would be in bed by now. The night was warm and pleasant, and this was the first time in a long time that he’d had a real conversation with anyone, and by some crazy stroke of luck he’d found a kindred spirit in this snake pit: polar opposites in a lot of ways but imprisoned—for want of a better word—by the Yakuza.

He rummaged in his pockets. Maybe he could scrounge up enough change for a cheap convenience store meal. He turned when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps but before he could see who it was, something shoved him hard in the back, sending him sprawling over the ground.

“Watch it, Sawada,” a familiar voice jeered.

Taiji grimaced and looked down. His hands were badly grazed from the fall. That would sting pretty bad later on, but he picked himself up. “What do you want?”

“Nothing,” Ichinose said. “Just wanted to see how you’re coming along with paying me back.”

“I’m working it off, aren’t I?” Taiji growled. “You’ll get your money eventually. Piss off and leave me alone.”

“You’d better watch who you’re talking to,” Ichinose said. “We’ve heard that you’ve been stepping out of line. Hasn’t he?”

A guy that Taiji recognised as Sakuma, one of the warehouse workers, stepped forward. “Oh yeah. He’s trying to mess with the boss’ daughter. I saw him. Twice.”

Ichinose smirked. “I think this rookie needs to be put in his place, don’t you?”

Before Taiji had a chance to think about what that might involve, Sakuma had grabbed Taiji and locked his arms behind his back while he struggled and kicked.

“The terms of our deal were _very_ … _simple_.” Ichinose punctuated these last two words with a blow to Taiji’s stomach and he doubled over, trying not to gag.

“All you need to _do_ —”

A punch to the face.

“—is work until you’ve paid back all the _money_ —”

Another punch to the face

“—that you _owe_ me.” Ichinose rubbed his fist and stepped back, and Sakuma released his hold. Taiji sagged to his knees, coughing and reeling from the pain in his head. “You don’t need to talk to anyone. You’re not here to make friends or bother the Yamashiro family. You’re worth less than dirt, you hear?”

Ichinose finished this off with a kick to Taiji’s ribs and the pair laughed amongst themselves and left him curled up on the ground. He forgot all about getting a cheap meal from the convenience store. He waited there for as long as he could, hoping that they were long gone by the time he dragged himself home.

The door to Fumiyo’s bedroom was closed; good, that meant she was asleep and he wouldn’t have to explain anything to her just yet. He dug around in the medicine cabinet for some painkillers, choking down three or four tablets with a drink of water straight from the tap, splashed some more water in his face, stripped down to his underwear and crawled into bed.

He was awoken by the sound of someone moving about in their apartment: a girl’s voice softly humming, the fridge opening and closing, the scrape of a chair leg on tiles, and then a soft knock at his door. He held his breath and tucked the blanket over his head.

The door opened a crack. “Hey. Taiji,” she whispered.

“Mmph?” he grunted.

“I’m off to school now.”

“Mmkay. Take care.”

“I made some food last night. There’s leftovers in the fridge if you’re hungry.”

“Thank you.”

The door started to close.

“Hey, Fumiyo.”

“Yeah?”

Taiji hesitated. “Love you, kiddo.”

She made a soft sound that indicated that she was smiling. “I know. I love you too. And… I really appreciate how hard you work. I know it’s not easy. That’s why I’m studying so hard, see? My teachers say if I get really good marks, I can get a scholarship into a good high school next year. Then you won’t have to worry about my school fees.”

Taiji blinked back tears. The only thing he could think to say was, “That’s my girl.”

As soon as the front door closed behind Fumiyo, Taiji threw the covers back. There was a big red bruise forming on his ribs, and his face felt sore and swollen, too. Fucking assholes.

After heating up some leftovers for breakfast, he spent the rest of the morning lying in bed with a bag of frozen peas on his face and a plastic bag full of ice on the bruise on his ribs. Then the ice started melting and the bag leaked, so he threw that in the sink and got dressed for another day of shitty work.

His appearance immediately attracted the attention of everybody there, curious—but by no means sympathetic—as to how it had happened. Taiji offered no details but throughout the evening he cast a few glares at Sakuma, the guy who had snitched on him to Ichinose. Sakuma smirked back. A few of the rougher guys pretended to bump into him to rile him up, but he refused to fight back and they soon lost interest in their punching bag. His food disappeared from the fridge. Big surprise there. He drank another bottle of water and ignored his hunger. Knockoff time couldn’t come soon enough. As soon as the whistle blew, Taiji grabbed his jacket and left, almost jogging despite the pain in his ribs.

He rounded the first corner and didn’t see the black BMW until the driver honked the horn and he jumped in fright.

The driver’s side window rolled down. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Kasumi teased, and then her face immediately fell. “What happened to you?”

Taiji gulped. He couldn’t be seen talking to the boss’ daughter again. “Nothing. Sorry, I gotta go.”

“Wait, Taiji—!” Kasumi got out of the car and ran after him, grabbing his arm. “Who did this?”

“Nobody! It’s nothing.”

“You have a fucking black eye,” she snapped. “Tell me who did this to you.”

It took much coaxing but Taiji finally gave in.

“Ichinose. And Sakuma.” Taiji swallowed hard and rubbed his ribs. “Sakuma told him I was talking to you. They grabbed me last night and… they said I needed to be put in my place and so…”

Kasumi pursed her lips. “Are you okay? Do you need a doctor or anything?”

“No! I just… I don’t want anything, please…”

“At least let me drive you home, what if they—”

“No, Kasumi!” Taiji shouted. He pointed at his face. “ _This_ is what they did to me just for talking to you!”

“Just get in the car and… I’ll deal with it.”

She looked so calm and utterly assured that he couldn’t help but believe her.

“Have you eaten?” she asked.

“What?”

“Get in, we’ll get you some food and I’ll take you home.”

She took him to a quiet little ramen shop where he devoured a huge bowl of noodles and didn’t protest when Kasumi firmly told him that she would be paying. After his meal, she dropped him off at home as she had promised.

“Just get some sleep and don’t worry about anything, okay?”

With a stomach full of good food, Taiji slept incredibly well that night.

  
  


A week or so passed and still he got a few weird looks and rude remarks from the others. His food kept disappearing every now and then, and one time Taiji opened the fridge to find that some douchebag had taken a big bite out of his sandwich and put it back. Later he heard Sakuma complaining loudly about some sandwich tasting like crap.

Taiji kept his mouth shut and his head down and went about his work diligently. Then one day, Sakuma was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm one week and 18,000 words into writing something new (new-ish) that I'm pretty excited about and having a lot of fun with it as well :)  
> I hope you'll all be there at the end to see it! In the meantime I hope you're still enjoying Taiji's story <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so tired of being in lockdown.

“What did you do to him?”

Kasumi paused with a beer bottle at her lips. “Who?”

Taiji looked around furtively and lowered his voice. “The guy. Sakuma. He wasn’t at work today.”

“Oh, him. I got rid of him.”

“What?! You killed him?”

“I… what?” She stared at him. “Jesus. I thought _I_ was screwed up. I had my guy string him up for theft—even had evidence—and he wet himself and quit on the spot.”

Relieved, Taiji slumped over with his head resting on the bar counter. “Why?”

Kasumi gave him a very long look. “Because what they did to you was bullshit.”

Taiji had never really believed in the whole ‘romantic love’ thing. He’d gone through more than his share of girls in his bad boy bosozoku days but he’d never been with a girl that he actually _liked_ and wanted to see more than once, so when they sat in the back of Kasumi’s car in a dark alley at the end of the night with her straddling his lap, her skirt hiked up, kissing like they might never see each other again, he damn well believed in love now. And boy could she kiss. She kissed him like she was making love to him and it fucking turned him on even before she began to slowly grind against him, so much so that he nearly panicked when she took his hand and guided him up beneath her skirt, between her smooth, soft thighs where she was warm and wet beneath her underwear.

“Fuck,” he gasped, snatching his hand away and breaking their kiss. “No. I can’t.”

“I bet you can,” she purred.

“No I just… I can’t.” He swallowed hard. “You’re the boss’ daughter, and you’re going to marry—”

“Fuck all that,” she breathed, her voice low and husky. “Oh god, you’re so _big_ …” She ran a firm hand up his thigh and palmed him through his jeans, and all he could do was tremble and bite his lip, his head falling back against the car seat, light and swimming from a cocktail of pleasure and panic.

“Kasumi,” Taiji choked out. “Please. Don’t.”

She sighed and climbed off his lap. He was dreadfully afraid that he’d pissed her off and be rejected by the one girl he had ever fallen for. Instead, all she did was rest her head upon his shoulder while he tried to calm his breathing.

“I’m really sorry, Kasumi. You’re amazing and gorgeous but it’s… not right.”

She sighed again. “Yeah. You’re right. I’m sorry, too.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“Shall I just take you home, then?”

“Yes, please.”

They disentangled each other with some effort, laughing nervously when they smacked heads trying to find her shoes in the dark. The drive was made in awkward silence, and when they reached his crappy apartment block she got out of the car and walked him to the door. He looked at her, with her long, perfect hair gleaming in the glow of the streetlights, and those ripe red lips just begging to be tasted, and that was how they ended up fucking behind the building.

With her back pressed against the wall, Kasumi had her skirt up, one leg hiked around his waist and her delicate lace underwear pushed to one side while he pounded into her, his lips at her collarbone, one hand squeezing the smooth thigh around his waist. She met him thrust for thrust, her head thrown back, and she reached up and fumbled to undo the buttons on her blouse. He dipped his other hand beneath the soft fabric, groping one-handed to undo the clasp on her bra and she stifled a moan when his calloused hand caressed her breast, fitting perfectly into the palm of his hand and god she was so fucking hot for him and it was all he could do to keep himself upright when she grazed her teeth against his ear and whispered breathlessly, “ _Harder_. I need all of that big cock of yours.”

He was only too happy to oblige and she had to bury her face into his shoulder to stifle her moans of agonised pleasure, and holding her in his arms, he could feel her tensing up all over, her fingers digging into his back.

“Yes oh god… yes, _more_.” She was almost sobbing now and his knees buckled when he felt her clenching around him, so hot and tight as she orgasmed around him, uttering soft, trembling cries of pleasure and he swore under his breath and pulled out, ignoring her whine of disappointment, giving himself a few quick strokes until he emptied himself out onto the ground between their feet, clutching each other while they caught their breath.

“Wow. That was…” Kasumi was flushed with pleasure, her hair a mess.

“That was stupid,” he muttered.

“Why? Didn’t you like it?”

He kissed her softly. “You know I did.”

“Then…?” She gazed at him. “Oh. Don’t worry, I’m on birth control.”

“Still…”

“If you’re still worried, I’ll get some condoms next time.” She bit her lower lip enticingly. “Now that I know what size you are.”

The look she gave him was almost enough to make him blush. To hide it, he turned away and started stuffing himself back into his pants.

They would meet like this two or three times a week, somewhere along his walking route home after his shift, and she would take them somewhere secluded across town for some private time together, having sex in the back seat of her car. It was cramped but they made do, and after they had finished, she would curl up into his arms, and they would kiss and whisper sweet nothings to each other, and she would touch him in ways he’d never been touched by another.

“You know,” she murmured. “I never thought I’d be fucking a guy in the back of a car like some ordinary, dirty girl.”

Taiji raised an eyebrow. “Is that good or bad?”

She laughed. “You don’t get it, do you? Growing up, I could have almost anything I wanted. I never had to worry about money or when my next meal would be. Then I learned that it’s all just an act. It’s all fake, my friends were fake, the people who work for my dad are fake, all the people around me are fake. They only treat me the way they do because of my family’s name. But this—” she held his face in both hands, “—it’s real. You’re the realest thing in my life.”

He held her close, absently playing with her hair with one hand, his other hand on her thigh, stroking her soft skin with his thumb.

“Taiji?”

“Mm?”

“I’ve been thinking. I can give you the money to pay off your debt.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“But—”

“No,” he repeated firmly. “This is _my_ problem and I’m going to deal with it. I appreciate the offer, but this is something I need to do for myself.”

“You’re so stubborn.”

“So are you,” he countered. “Besides, someone’s bound to notice. They’re probably suspicious about us already.”

Kasumi nodded glumly. It was a fanciful and optimistic idea, but it would be difficult even for her to hide. It was enough work as it was to keep their affair a secret, and as time wore on, they became increasingly afraid that they would be found out. Taiji even tried to end it once. That had devolved into a lot of shouting and then he kissed her like a total idiot, or maybe she kissed him, and she had ended up on the hood of her BMW with Taiji pushing her legs apart while she shoved a hand down his jeans.

After nearly three months of sneaking around like this, they began to crave more time and intimacy with each other. Going to her house was obviously not an option, and he didn’t want to take Kasumi back to his own shabby apartment and fuck her while his little sister slept in the other room. They promised to work out a time when they might be able to sort something out, and in spring that year the time finally came.

“What are you looking so happy about?” Taiji was wary; the last time Kasumi had a bright idea, it was for them to just run away together. Taiji had shot that one down fast; under no circumstances would he leave his sister to fend for herself.

“What are you doing in two weeks’ time?” she asked.

“Why?”

“Anything going on at home or maybe Fumiyo’s school?”

“No,” he said bluntly. “They’ve got the spring trip coming up. A week in Kyoto, but it’s not like I can afford to send her.”

“If I paid that for you—”

Taiji sighed. “No. We’ve talked about this.”

“Hear me out. My dad’s going on a business trip to Nagoya for a month. He’s taking a whole bunch of his guys. If he’s not going to be in town, and if Fumiyo’s away on a school trip that I’m sure she’d love to go on…”

He met her gaze. That _could_ work. “What are you thinking?”

“You, me, hotel room, and lots and lots of wine.”

* * *

“I’m off to school!”

Fuck!

Taiji leapt out of bed and yanked on a pair of jeans from the floor, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste. “Wait!”

“I can’t, I’ll be late!”

“Wait wait wait!”

Fumiyo paused with the front door half-open, looking at him with a bemused expression.

“I’ve got something for you.” Taiji held out a rumpled envelope.

Curiously, Fumiyo took it and glanced at him.

“Go on. Open it.”

“Okay…” She slid a finger beneath the flap and broke the seal. Inside was a folded sheet of paper and a sum of money. She frowned, puzzled. “What’s this for?”

“Your school trip.”

“But… we can’t afford to spend that kind of money…” Fumiyo had been so sure about not going on the school trip that she’d simply thrown the permission slip away without mentioning it to him, and he’d had to dig through the trash to rescue it. Now, she looked so unhappy about spending the money on something as frivolous as a school trip that it broke his heart.

“Hey. No, it’s really okay,” he assured her. “I’ve been saving it up for a while and you deserve this, kiddo.”

“Are you _sure?_ ” she whispered and oh god, her eyes were welling up and her lower lip trembled, and he pulled her in a tight hug so that he wouldn’t have to see her cry.

“I am 300% sure,” he said firmly, ignoring the lump forming in his throat. “And I expect you to have a really good time. If you don’t, I’m asking for the money back.”

Fumiyo buried her face in his chest and made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and he rubbed her back soothingly until she had calmed down a little.

“That’s enough of that,” he said. “Go wash your face and get to school.”

“Uh-huh.” She sniffled and ran to the bathroom to splash some water in her face and beamed at him. “I’ll give this straight to my teacher so I don’t lose it! Thank you so much, Taiji. You’re the best!”

She dashed out the door and Taiji was left standing there in their dingy little apartment with a thick coil of guilt twisting in his gut. Fumiyo absolutely did deserve this trip, especially since he’d bailed on his promise to take her to Disneyland for her birthday last year, but by all accounts it was a coverup. He couldn’t very well tell her that his rich sort-of-girlfriend—who was the daughter of a Yakuza oyabun—had forked up the money to help send Fumiyo away on a convenient school trip so that the pair of them could shack up in a hotel room for a few nights and fuck each others’ brains out while her mob boss dad was out of town. Every time he looked at Fumiyo’s face with that bright smile, he felt a little bit worse. Every time he looked at Kasumi with those tempting lips, he felt a little bit better.

Two weeks after he gave her the money and the signed permission slip, he watched Fumiyo board the school bus with her friends and as the bus pulled away, he felt his heart hammering with excitement. This was it.


	8. Chapter 8

Three nights following Fumiyo’s school trip departure, Taiji and Kasumi checked into a hotel together - not a high-end hotel where she might be recognised, nor a cheap and crappy place either, but something mid-range just out of town. The room was a little on the small side but it was clean and fresh-smelling with thick carpet and crisp linens and a nice view of the hotel gardens, and in all likelihood they’d be spending all of their time in bed anyway.

The door to their room had barely closed before they were all over each other, kissing hungrily. Taiji dropped his bag on the floor, kicked off his shoes and shrugged his jacket off, all without breaking their kiss, breathing heavily when her hands slid up and underneath his tank top to drag her fingers down the hard muscles in his back. He picked her up and practically threw her onto the bed, where she laughed and pulled her t-shirt off over her head, enjoying the predatory way that he looked at her.

“Well?” she purred, playfully fingering her black lace bra. “What are you waiting for?”

Taiji didn’t need to be asked twice. He crawled over the bed and slowly ran his rough hands over her soft skin, closing his eyes, breathing in her soft floral perfume intermingled with the scent that was uniquely hers, cupping a breast and kissing her neck, growling when she arched into his touch to show him how much she enjoyed this kind of treatment. They fumbled with each others’ clothes and he sat back for a moment to take in the sight before him. They’d never had the luxury of seeing each other naked before. Up until now they’d had to take advantage of every stolen moment that they could, in the backseat of her car or behind a seedy bar, but here she was before him, wearing nothing but that very sexy black lace bra that he liked so much that he didn’t want to take it off just yet, and she was looking at him like she wanted to devour him alive. He kissed her full on the lips and trailed more kisses down her neck, between her breasts, down her slender body, and she trembled and moaned when he dipped his head between her legs and tasted her.

Sex was hard and rough and dirty, fuelled by pent-up, desperate desire for each other. He caressed her breasts with one hand while he fucked her, slipped a hand beneath her back and undid the clasp of her bra, carelessly tossing the tiny garment aside and groaning in appreciation when she gazed up at him through half-lidded eyes and fondled herself for him. He lowered his head and suckled at her nipples, kissing and licking, grinding their hips together at the peak of each thrust, and then she locked her thighs about his hips and flipped them over with his entire length still inside her and her hair falling in soft waves about her shoulders. He reached up and fondled her while she rode him, slowly at first and building in intensity until they were both gasping for breath in between moans, and he barely heard her breathy voice moaning, “Oh god… oh god Taiji… fuck me Taiji I’m gonna…”

Once they had recovered from their passionate lovemaking and cleaned up the mess, he gathered her into his arms and tugged the blankets over them both, and Kasumi cupped his face with one hand and kissed him sweetly.

“I’m so glad we did this,” she whispered. She couldn’t stop smiling.

“Me, too,” Taiji murmured, smoothing some of her tousled hair away from her face.

“Gentaro could never make me feel the way you do.”

“Your husband-to-be?”

“Mm. Yeah,” she said absently, tracing a finger along the rose tattoo on his arm. “I could stay like this forever.”

“Good.” Taiji kissed her along her collarbone. “Because you look fucking amazing naked.”

She laughed and got disentangled herself from his arms, pulling a cotton robe from the wardrobe and wrapping it around herself before producing a bottle of wine from her overnight bag. “Drink?”

Taiji leaned back against the pillows with his arms folded behind his head. “Only if you take that off.”

Kasumi laughed again, but she did loosen the sash on the robe and let it fall open, revealing just a cheeky curve of her breasts to tease him. They drank expensive red wine in between kisses and enjoyed another round of heated sex. In here, they felt like time had stopped and they could finally enjoy each other properly and draw out their pleasure for as long as they could bear. Utterly spent, they slept until late morning when she woke him up with her lips around his cock, working him with her lips and tongue and hands until he poured himself into her mouth before he was awake enough to realise he was having an orgasm. Then she’d coyly disappeared into the bathroom for a shower where he took her up against the glass.

“You know what?” Taiji asked.

“What?”

He trailed his fingers along her bare leg beneath the hem of her robe and with his other hand, waved at their room service meal spread out over two trays on the bed. “I think this is the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.”

Kasumi chuckled wryly. “I think so, too. Guess we both experienced a shitty upbringing, huh?”

Taiji raised an eyebrow. “You?”

She scoffed. “My parents gave me everything I wanted but they didn’t love me. I never had any real friends growing up. In primary school, all the other kids were scared of me. Nobody talked to me, nobody played with me, and they all looked at me funny. I remember my father telling me to stop crying, because I was better than all of the other kids. That just made me cry harder.

“Then in high school it was the other way around; everybody wanted to be the Yakuza girl’s best friend. I was so sheltered and naïve that, for the longest time, I thought they were sincere. People like that make me fucking sick.” 

Taiji was quiet for a moment and then he topped up their wine glasses. “Our dad ran out on us when I was 8. My sister was 3 at the time. She doesn’t even remember him. Hell, I’m not sure I remember what he looked like, either. He was just never there. Our mother raised us on his own. I think I was too much of a shithead and a lost cause by the time I was 10, but at least Fumiyo’s got her head screwed on right.

“Our mother worked as a cleaner in an office building. We were poor and didn’t have much, but I remember her cooking for us, reading to us and sitting on the floor playing games with us. She cried, sometimes. I don’t think she knew that we knew. She never got to have a life. She was too busy looking after us. Even when I dropped out of school and joined the bosozoku, her biggest concern was that I would get hurt.” Taiji looked down at his hands clasped in his lap. “She died a few years ago.”

The pair sipped their wine in thoughtful silence for a while, not looking at each other. Finally Kasumi reached across the bed and touched his fingertips.

“You’re not a lost cause,” she said quietly.

Taiji snorted. “How do you figure? High school dropout, ex-bosozoku, gambling problem?”

“Those are just parts of you. You’re a good brother and you’re doing your best to give your sister the best life you can, even if it’s at your own expense. And you have a lot more honour than anyone else I’ve known. You don’t have to put on a brave face for me.”

Taiji was unconvinced but Kasumi didn’t press the issue further and she changed the subject instead. “I’d love to meet Fumiyo properly. She sounds like a good kid.”

“She is a good kid,” he agreed. “I wish you could have met my mother. She would have loved you. She could always see the good in people.”

Kasumi quietly started tidying up the remains of their meal and left the trays outside their hotel room door to be picked up.

“Any more wine?” she asked.

Taiji climbed out of bed and reached for the bottle. “Damn. We’re all out.”

“Did we finish it all already?”

“Guess we’ve been enjoying ourselves a little too much,” he chuckled.

Kasumi disappeared into the bathroom. “I’ll go out and get some more.”

“Let me—”

“I’m already dressed,” she said, emerging from the bathroom and tugging a t-shirt on over her head. She paused at the door. “You know what you _can_ do for me?”

“Mm?”

“You can be naked and sitting in a bubble bath, waiting for me when I get back.”

The door closed behind her and he laughed. When had he ever felt so light and relaxed and happy? Probably never. They’d always had something to worry about—money, food, their mother’s poor health, his sister’s education, bills, work, the mob—but the past 24 hours were easily the best times of his life. He wasn’t stupid or idealistic. He knew that this scorching love affair between a dirt-poor, ex-bosozoku high school dropout and a Yakuza heiress could never last, and she knew that as well, but it wasn’t something they wanted or needed to think about right now.

He rolled out of bed and padded into the bathroom to run a bath, and over the rushing water he heard a knock at the door.

“Back already?” he called. “Did you forget your room key or something?”

There was no answer, only another knock. Probably room service, he figured, so he picked up his clothes off the floor and hastened to get dressed.

“Coming!” he shouted when there came a third knock. He opened the door and pain exploded in his head and everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fairly short chapter but things are finally coming to a head!


	9. Chapter 9

_SLAP_.

“Hey.”

_SLAP_.

“Wake up!”

Taiji winced when someone slapped him over the head twice more and tried to open his eyes. His head spun and he could hear voices all shouting over the top of one another, and in between them was Kasumi’s voice screaming his name. His left eye felt weird. It took a few seconds for him to realise that it was almost swollen shut. He was on his knees with a couple of strong guys on either side holding him down. Looking about with his good eye, he could see men in suits on all sides. At the front and centre was a stern-looking, middle-aged man in a pinstriped suit, and heavy gold rings on both hands, accompanied by two men of a similar vintage standing at attention. Kasumi was held back by two more men in suits, and beside her was a woman who looked like an older version of Kasumi; her mother, Taiji guessed, and the important-looking man with the thick gold rings had to be her father, Yamashiro.

Fuck.

Yamashiro stared him down with an expression of disdain. “What is your name?”

Taiji said nothing. His mouth had gone dry.

“The boss asked you a question!” One of Taiji’s keepers punched him in the head and Kasumi cried out for them to stop. “What’s your name, asshole?”

“Sawa… Sawada,” Taiji croaked out. “Sawada Taiji.”

A look of mild confusion crossed the oyabun’s face. One of his officers leaned in and whispered a few words to him and Yamashiro nodded.

“Do you know who this is?” Yamashiro pointed at Kasumi.

Taiji gulped. “Yes,” he whispered, nodding once.

“This is my daughter,” the man said as though Taiji hadn’t answered. “The daughter of the Yamashiro family. Who are you to lay a hand on her, to speak to her?”

Taiji said nothing but his eyes flickered across to Kasumi, her eyes red, her face streaked with tears, and he received another blow to the head.

“Don’t look at her!” the guy snapped.

“Do you know what the punishment is for raping the oyabun’s daughter?” Yamashiro asked crisply.

“I didn’t—”

Kasumi screamed when another punch landed, harder this time, and Taiji could feel blood trickling down the back of his throat and leaking from his nose. His eyes watered and he coughed and spat. It tasted astringent and coppery.

“I didn’t rape her—”

“You lie.”

“Stop this!” Kasumi screamed. “He’s telling the truth—”

“Quiet,” her father grunted.

“No, we love each other— _no, Father, PLEASE!_ ” she shrieked as her father’s men continued beating Taiji until he was curled up on the floor, moaning.

“This man needs to be taught a lesson, honey.”

“Stop it, stop it! Leave him alone, I love him, I care about him!”

“Kasumi, sweetheart,” her mother pleaded. “Stop this nonsense! You’ll bring shame to our whole family.”

“Fuck this piece of shit family!”

“Kasumi!”

“He must have drugged her, Sir,” one of Yamashiro’s officers said. “She was very confused when we picked her up. She barely knew who she was.”

“You fucking _liar!_ ”

“Be quiet!” Yamashiro roared. “You have a duty to this family and that does not include associating with this… this derelict! Mizuko, talk some sense into your daughter, for god’s sake.”

“Kasumi, please, listen to your father.” Her mother pushed away her keepers and held her daughter tenderly. “Listen to him, be good and please just do what he says.”

“Mother, do you _want_ me to be unhappy?”

“Sweetheart, you’re still young, you don’t understand! My marriage to your father was arranged. We barely knew each other before we married but we grew to love each other, and so will you! You could ruin your whole life being with a no-hoper like this boy.”

“Taiji’s better than any of—” This was cut off with a shriek pain when the oyabun backhanded his daughter, and Taiji yelled her name and struggled uselessly against his captors.

Kasumi stared at her father, shocked.

“I’ll discipline my offspring as I see fit,” Yamashiro growled.

“You bastard,” she hissed. “Fucking _bastard!_ ”

“Oh… darling,” her mother said sadly, shaking her head and cupping Kasumi’s tearstained face in her hands. “Your father is only doing this because he loves you and he’s worried about you. We’re all worried! Please just be good and we can sort this out quietly. We’ll speak with the Aikawa family and ask for their forgiveness. Hopefully Gentaro will still be willing to marry you even though you’re not a virgin any more.”

Kasumi could only laugh harshly at this. “I haven’t been a virgin since I was 15, _Mother_ ,” she spat, clearly enjoying her parents’ horrified expressions. “That’s right. My first was a boy from school. We used to study together at his house and then we started having sex. We spent a lot of those ‘study’ sessions just fucking and I still graduated high school in the top three of my year level. Remember Nanase, that cousin that I was really close with until we suddenly stopped speaking to one another? That was because I blew her boyfriend, but the guy was pretty much sleeping with all the girls anyway, plus he had a tiny dick. And then there was—”

Another slap, this time delivered by her mother. “Stop these disgusting stories at once!”

Kasumi’s eyes were cold and hard and brimming with new tears. “Yes, I’m fucking disgusting, but not half as disgusting as this life I was born into!”

This devolved into another screaming match until her mother fled in tears, and Yamashiro followed with orders for his men to bring his daughter and throw Taiji out. Kasumi was dragged away screaming his name while Yamashiro’s men kicked and punched him, finally hoisting him up by his arms like a limp carcass and discarding him out on the street to lick his wounds.

Every so often there would be people walking past; most ignored him, keen to avoid whatever violent, drunken circumstances had resulted in this scenario. A few people looked at him and murmured to each other worriedly. A group of salarymen wondered if they should call the police or an ambulance, but in the end, nobody did. A couple of university students bent down and tried to talk to him, asking if he was okay. Taiji just blinked slowly at them, uncomprehending, and eventually they went away.

By the time he was able to summon the will to move, it was very late and the streets were quiet. With much effort, he picked himself up and almost collapsed again. His whole body fucking hurt and he was stiff and sore all over. Groaning in pain, he got up on his hands and knees and took a moment to breathe. His face was caked with dried blood and he wiped at it with the back of one hand. The dried blood came off in dark flakes. Using a signpost for support, he climbed to his feet very and slowly hobbled home.

The front door to his apartment banged open and he fell inside and groped around in the dark for the lights, knocking over a cheap folding chair and getting himself tangled up in the chair legs. He kicked it away as hard as he could and crawled across the linoleum floor. God, he was so fucking tired that all he wanted to do was crawl into bed, but it was miles away and he really didn’t have the energy to get there. Maybe if he could just make it to the sofa…

Something touched his arm and he reacted defensively, trying to kick or punch or swat away whatever was near him, but instead of rough male voices but it was just one voice, small, frightened, calling his name over and over, and a light hand was touching his face and smoothing back his hair.

“Taiji! Wake up! What happened to you? Taiji, wake up, talk to me!”

He cracked his good eye open; the brightness of the fluorescent tube on the ceiling felt like white hot needles and he moaned and shut his eyes again and tried to cover his face with his hands until a dark shape obscured the light. He chanced another look: it was Fumiyo hovering over him, her face full of worry and fear and confusion.

“Oh god, you’re awake.” Something dripped onto his chin and trickled down his neck. Water; no, tears. “What happened to you?”

“What?” he wheezed, still groggy.

“Who hurt you like this?”

Taiji squinted up at the ceiling, trying to think. Everything was a jumble in his head: money and gambling, Kasumi in bed with him, the Yakuza, god his back was killing him, why was the bed so damn hard? He was trying to piece it all back together but Fumiyo’s nagging was really distracting, and wasn’t she supposed to be at school, anyway?

Something about ‘Fumiyo’ and ‘school’ slowly turned in his head until it clicked into place. Fumiyo was meant to be on her school trip. If she was back home, how long had he been lying on the floor like this? A day? Two days?

“ _Taiji!_ ”

He winced and held a hand to his head. “God. Please. Shut up.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, half in a sob, half in a whisper. “But won’t you tell me what happened?”

“I…”

_I got caught screwing a Yakuza boss’ daughter and they beat the shit out of me?_

“I was mugged,” he lied.

“Oh my god. How? Where? Did you call the police?”

Yeah, right.

“No. It was… I was on the way home from work. Didn’t see who they were. It was dark. They just jumped on me outta nowhere.” He forced a harsh laugh. “I guess they were mad that I didn’t have anything worth stealing so they beat me up.”

“We should get you some help!” his sister pleaded. “I’ll go get Mrs Hamada—”

“ _NO!_ ”

Fumiyo jumped and cringed at his tone of voice.

“No,” he said again, more gently this time, pushing himself up on one arm, and Fumiyo did her best to help him up. “Don’t bother her about this. The police can’t do anything now, and we can’t afford a doctor. I’m… I’ll be okay. Just need to rest.” He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, limped to the bathroom and locked the door.

What he saw in the mirror was a wreck. His face was badly bruised and swollen, and the skin around his mouth and chin was painted with a film of dark, dried blood that cracked when he opened his mouth. At least all of his teeth were still there. There was blood caked and matted in his hair, too. He turned the shower on, climbed in and just sat in the tub for a while, letting the soothing hot water pelt down on him, loosening all of that dried blood and washing it down the drain in currents of watery red. He washed himself very carefully, using the opportunity to take stock of his injuries. He could still move his arms and legs, his fingers and toes, so he figured that nothing was broken—except his spirit, perhaps—but there were deep purple bruises on his ribs and arms, and a couple on his legs, and everything felt tired and sore. His legs were so wobbly that he nearly slipped climbing out of the tub. It would be just his luck. Imagine being found dead and naked in the bathroom with his head cracked open, after those Yakuza cunts had kicked the crap out of him.

At least he’d be free then. Maybe. But then Fumiyo would be all alone. He needed to look after her.

When he finally emerged from the bathroom, he gulped down a few painkillers and went straight to bed and would have gone straight to sleep if not for the soft knock on the door.

“What?” he growled.

The door opened a crack and his sister’s pale, frightened face peered inside. “I made you some food,” she whispered. “You should eat something.”

He really just wanted to go to sleep, preferably forever, but he made a noise of assent and she came in and sat on the edge of the bed. She tried to help him sit up but he waved her away and took the bowl of steaming instant ramen, slowly shovelling noodles into his mouth using cheap disposable chopsticks. He was starving, he realised. How long _had_ he been out cold? He’d completely lost track of time. And what about Kasumi, what had happened with her after her father’s thugs had dragged her away?

“—better?”

Taiji blinked. “What?”

“I said, does that feel better?” Fumiyo asked with a tentative smile.

“Yeah. It does. Thank you.” He felt guilty about letting his mind wander like that when his sister was in front of him as worried as she was. _He_ was meant to be taking care of _her_ , not the other way around. He made a concerted effort to smile through his swollen face. “How was your school trip, anyway? Tell me all about it.”

Fumiyo’s face broke into the purest, happiest smile he’d ever seen on her as she described the bus trip to Kyoto and seeing all of the wonderful sights that the old city had to offer, how her class had walked along the Philosopher’s Path lined with sakura trees in full bloom. They’d visited the famous Kinkaku-ji and Ginkaku-ji temples, taken photos at Kiyomizu-dera, and broke off into small groups to participate in a traditional tea ceremony where they had each learned to fold origami cranes and tried their hand at brewing a bowl of matcha.

“It was honestly amazing, I’m _dying_ to take you there one day,” she said breathlessly.

The innocence of such a wish broke his heart, that she thought that someday they would climb out of the hole they were in and be able to do things like go on holidays and see the wonderful things that their own country had to offer. Taiji could see no such hope in their future. Hers, maybe, if she finished her education and found a good job, but he had no future.

He was too hurt to be able to return to work and this was not for lack of trying. He needed to work, not only for the money, but to avoid drawing out the length of his debt any further than it needed to be, but he had barely walked a block before he gave up, turned around and went home. He ended up spending every single day absolutely terrified of what the Yakuza would do - not to him, but to Fumiyo. At first he thought the Yakuza guys would kick down his door and take her for ransom. Then he began to worry that they would stalk her at school and kidnap her while he was curled up at home. Each afternoon he waited anxiously, wondering if she would make it home after school. Each afternoon she would come home and check on him before opening up her homework in blissful ignorance. He didn’t dare ask if she’d seen or spoken to anyone out of the ordinary.

After missing a full week of work, he finally forced himself to shower and get dressed. He still felt like he’d been hit by a truck but he couldn’t stand the torture. He was sure that everyone at the warehouse would be shitting all over him, but they weren’t treating him any worse than they usually did. They didn’t know. They _actually didn’t know_ what had happened. And it made sense. Reputation and saving face was everything. The Yamashiro family couldn’t afford to let something this disgraceful filter down through the ranks.

A few months after he’d returned to work, the worst of his bruises were all healed, he still worried about the Yakuza coming to lynch him, and he heard that the boss’ daughter had married the heir of a bigger and older Yakuza clan. He spent the rest of his shift in an appalling mood. His chest actually _hurt_. It felt twisted and raw, like someone had reached into his chest and squeezed his insides with barbed talons. Was this what it felt like to have your heart broken? He’d never have imagined that they meant it so literally. So Kasumi had had her fun screwing around with a bad boy for a while and now she’d gone back to her cushy rich bitch life with her rich-ass husband, being driven around in a shiny Beemer, splashing expensive wine everywhere, wearing clothes that cost more than he made in a year. Hell, given the choice, Taiji would have chosen the easy road, too.

But it still hurt. He’d never admit it to anyone even if they held a gun to his head, but it hurt like hell. It opened up old, forgotten wounds of being abandoned. The only person who could help him was himself, and at the end of the day he was working his ass off to give Fumiyo a better chance at life. As soon as his debt to the Yakuza was settled, maybe he could get his old job back and be making real money. And he wouldn’t make the same mistakes again. He’d never see Kasumi again, that much was certain, and as much as it hurt, he knew that this was for the best. He would put her out of his mind and move on with his life. A very important life lesson had been cemented in his mind: being nice to other people only gets you into trouble, and being too soft gives them free rein to walk all over you and use you.

He sank down onto the sofa to eat a cup of instant ramen, staring blankly at the blaring TV. Fumiyo was spending the night at a friend’s place so he wasn’t worried about waking her. She’d spent ages trying to convince him to let her have a sleepover. _I’m 15, I can take care of myself_ , she said. He couldn’t very well say that he was scared of the fucking mob kidnapping and raping her, and so after giving her a laundry list of precautions, he reluctantly agreed.

There was a soft knock at the door. He froze and slowly put his meal down. Who could possibly be visiting at this time of the night? The lights were all on so he couldn’t pretend he was asleep, either. Just as he was scanning the apartment, looking for something to use as a weapon, there came another knock, and a soft, feminine voice on the other side.

“Taiji? Can we talk? It’s just me.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Taiji? Can we talk? It’s just me.”

He flung the door open. “What’s there to talk about?” he snapped. “You shouldn’t even be here.”

“It’s important.” Kasumi held the door open even as he tried to close it in her face. “Is Fumiyo here?”

“No. She’s at a friend’s place.”

Through the narrow gap in the doorway, Kasumi looked relieved. “That’s probably for the best right now.”

There was a chilly silence then, and Taiji’s gaze fell upon her left hand resting against the doorframe. “Sorry, I forgot to congratulate you on the happy news of your _wedding_.”

He spat this out with such venom that Kasumi looked hurt and she slowly lowered her hand, clenching and unclenching it, clearly very uncomfortable with the whole situation. “Do you really think I _wanted_ to marry him? They had me shipped off to the Aikawa estate like a fucking broodmare. My own mother watches my bastard father hit me and then she tells me this is for my own good. Apparently I’m so lucky that Gentaro still wanted to marry me. I was a fucking _prisoner_ in there! I have had to play the good daughter and the dutiful wife this whole time and pretend to enjoy my fucking married life. That is the only reason I’m standing here instead of still being locked up.”

“And why _are_ you here?” he demanded.

“Because I’m worried about you! I didn’t know if they’d killed you, nobody told me anything, I didn’t know if—” Her eyes were brimming with tears.

“Well, you’re married now, so it doesn’t matter, does it?”

“Fuck you, asshole! I’m trying to help you!” She pushed past him and barged inside. It was a strange sight to see such a well-dressed woman in a dingy, cluttered apartment.

“What do you mean ‘help’? I told you, I don’t need your help.”

“Okay then,” she snapped, swiping at a stray tear running down her face. “Tell me, how long have you been working at that warehouse shipping bootlegged alcohol and drugs?”

Taiji faltered. “I… I dunno. Eight or nine months.”

“And how close are you to paying off your debt?”

He paused again. Their pay was always in cash with no paperwork to go with it, and somehow it had never crossed his mind to keep records of his own. Mostly he was glad to get paid at all.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “But I’ve got to be getting close.”

“Really?” Kasumi’s tone was full of scorn. “Because I’ve looked at the numbers, Taiji. They’re stitching you up. They’ll keep you in debt forever if they can, now that they have you under their thumb.”

“What?” He stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“I’m saying they’re lying to you! I’ve run the numbers and unless you owe them a million fucking yen, you _must_ have paid off your debt by now but here you are, still working for them!”

“No… that can’t be right, they said—”

“Fuck what they said, Taiji! You think the goddamn Yakuza is above this shit? I’ve seen this kind of thing happening since I was a little girl, I was thirteen when I learned that normal people don’t use blackmail and extortion to get what they want!”

Taiji’s mind reeled and all he could do was stare at her in disbelief. He felt sick. A twisted, bitter part of him said that she was lying to him. She had lied to him the whole time. She didn’t give a fuck about him, that was why it was so easy for her to run off and marry that rich guy. He wanted to shove her out the door and tell her to fuck off out of his life. She’d brought him nothing but trouble, hadn’t she? He fucking regretted having tried to help her that night he thought she was being mugged. That had been the first of many, _many_ mistakes.

“Well.” He swallowed hard. “Just say for a minute that you’re telling the truth…”

“What the fuck am I going to accomplish by lying to you?”

“Well, okay, but what am I supposed to do about it?” Taiji demanded. “If I talk to someone, they’re going to beat me up. Maybe they’ll kill me. I can’t go to the police, they won’t do shit. I’m fucking stuck in hell, aren’t I?”

“Taiji.” She gave him a sad smile. “I didn’t come all this way to give you the bad news and just leave.”

He looked down in stunned silence when she pressed a wad of cash into his hand. “Wh… what is this?”

“I’ve been siphoning this out of Gentaro’s bank account for the past few weeks. Take this and leave town with your sister. I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew about her.” Kasumi kept her eyes downcast. “I wish I could have gotten more but I was afraid someone would notice. I don’t know how long this will last you but it’s a start.”

Still speechless, Taiji thumbed through the money in his hand. There had to be at least a few hundred thousand yen in here. He’d never seen so much money in his entire life. “You… I can’t take this.”

“You’re too proud for your own good,” she scolded him gently. “If you don’t take the money and leave, you’re going to be their slave forever and your sister will be in danger.”

“But so will you,” he argued. “They’re going to find out sooner or later and then you—”

“I’ll be fine.” She laughed lightly, trying to reassure him, but it caught in her throat. “They won’t do anything to me. They need me. I’m the shitty-ass glue holding these two fucked up families together.”

When he looked at her, she was doing her best to smile but her perfectly-shaped eyebrows were furrowed, tears welled in her eyes, and the lips that he’d kissed dozens of times were pursed together and quivering. _You don’t have to put on a brave face for me_.

  
  


Taiji had never cared for slow sex. To him it was a waste of time; almost every time they’d been together they’d had to make the most of what little time they had, and it was always fast and rough and and intense and she enjoyed it just as much as he did, but tonight he kissed every inch of her body, committing the feel of her to memory, and she tangled his fingers in his long blond hair and arched and writhed for him, they kissed deeply while they moved together, blissfully and painfully bittersweet, knowing that this was the last time they would ever be together or see and touch each other. The smell of her perfume mixed with the heat from her body was intoxicating and when he cupped her face with one hand he realised she was crying. He brushed her tears away with his thumb but they kept falling.

“Am I hurting you?” he murmured.

“No, god no, never,” she breathed. “Don’t stop, please don’t stop.”

* * *

“Ah, I’ve missed these little babies.” Kasumi gazed at the cigarette between her fingers in the gloomy darkness.

Taiji took a drag of his own cigarette. “How come?”

“My _husband_ doesn’t like me smoking,” she said dryly. “Says it’s not right for a lady.”

Taiji wrinkled his nose. “What a moron. Fuck that guy.”

“He’s lousy in bed.”

They laughed at this, both sounding a little hysterical, and Taiji reached over and brushed away a lock of her hair. “Is he that bad?”

“He’s… fine. I’ve been a bit harsh on him in the past. He’s actually fine as a person. He’s just very sheltered. I used to be like that, too.” She reached over with her other hand and laced their fingers together. “I think he doesn’t know what to do with our marriage, either. If anything, we’re probably more like business partners than a married couple.” Kasumi rolled over and reached for the ashtray on the floor next to the bed, stubbing out her cigarette. “I should go.”

He watched her groping about in the dark for her clothes, admiring the lines of her body silhouetted against the dark as she got dressed, and he rose from the bed and slipped his arms around her, pressing delicate kisses to her shoulders and the nape of her neck. Kisses of affection were another thing that he’d always considered frivolous before they started seeing one another, and she sighed and leaned into his touch.

“I wish I didn’t have to go,” she said quietly.

“Come with me, then,” he urged. “We’ll leave together, just like you said that time, remember?”

“They’ll kill you for sure if they think you kidnapped me. At least this way you have a chance.” She held his face in both hands and gazed into his eyes. “I wish I could have met Fumiyo properly. But I know you’ll take care of her.”

They kissed for a long time until Kasumi gently pushed him away and left. Not long after the door closed behind her, he heard the rumble of a car starting up and driving away. It was almost dawn.

* * *

Taiji spent his work shift that evening on tenterhooks, edgy and skittish. Fumiyo would be going straight to school with her friend after their sleepover, and she wouldn’t be home until well after he’d left the apartment for work. He’d seriously considered calling in sick and whisking her away as soon as she got home, and was in the middle of packing some personal effects for the both of them when he realised what a bad idea that was. Missing work was sure to raise suspicion. So he did his best to act normal at work and his mind churned.

It was just past 2am by the time he got home. He opened Fumiyo’s bedroom door and winced when it squeaked, even though she was such a heavy sleeper that he’d often teased her about sleeping right through earthquakes. He knelt on the floor beside the bed and shook her shoulder; she mumbled something and rolled over, so he shook her harder.

“Wake up. Fumiyo, wake up!” he hissed, ripping the blankets off her.

She immediately curled up and groaned, scrunching her face and rubbing her eyes with her fists. “Whaaat?” she grumbled.

“Shh. Get up. Get dressed. We’re leaving.”

“Wha—?”

“Be quiet! I’ll explain later.”

“What… but I don’t under—”

“Just listen to me, we need to leave _now_!”

“Where are we going? When are we coming back?”

“We aren’t.”

“What? What do you mean we aren’t?”

“We’re leaving and we’re never coming back.”


	11. Chapter 11

**TATEYAMA, CHIBA**

“Hurry up, Fumiyo! You’re going to be late for work!”

“Shit, I know!”

Taiji grinned and watched his sister, now 16, tear about their shoebox apartment, almost tripping over things in her haste to get ready for work and felt a sudden and very fierce rush of love for her. He’d had to do a lot of shitty things in his life but the conversation they’d had when they left Ichikawa was far and away the worst thing he’d ever had to do. They only had each other and he was supposed to look after her and provide for her, not uproot them from their home and turn their lives upside down. She’d been silent for a long time while he explained that they were leaving town and never coming back; that she would not be going back to her school or seeing her school friends, ever; that her big brother had fucked up badly and gotten in trouble with the Yakuza; that they were relying on an unlikely friend’s charity to survive. She had been quiet, not looking at him, just staring at the floor between her tattered shoes while the train clattered and lurched, taking them far away from their childhood home and all of the memories they’d made there with their mother.

Once they’d found a place to rent and purchased some cheap, second-hand furnishings, he’d used a decent portion of Kasumi’s money to get Fumiyo into a decent school in Tateyama. He’d never been prouder than when he heard that she was one of but a handful who had achieved full marks on her entrance exams and even gotten into an advanced mathematics class. Hell, he was so damn proud of her that he nearly cried. She had worked hard with her studies and it showed, and maybe, just maybe he hadn’t let her down as much as he thought he had. His new job as a delivery driver for a local shipping company was paid fortnightly and, despite her protests, he’d gone out and bought them a small feast to celebrate. He even let her have a sip of his beer, which she promptly dismissed as ‘disgusting’ and washed the taste out of her mouth with her own sugar-laden milk tea.

The rest of Kasumi’s money was wrapped up in layers of plastic, triple-bagged in those ziplock bags and tucked inside the toilet cistern with a handful of coins to weigh it down. He was determined not to touch this money unless they absolutely had no choice. He had a whimsical dream of being able to give this money back to Kasumi someday; not for years and years, obviously, and she’d almost certainly laugh in his face and turn the money down, but he could dream.

Taiji liked his new job. Gone were the night shifts; he had normal working hours, Monday to Friday from 9am to 6pm, and he spent most of his time sitting down, driving the delivery van around the seaside town instead of breaking his back packing pallets. The boss was a middle-aged man who reminded him of his old night shift foreman back in Ichikawa. The other delivery drivers and warehouse workers were in their late-twenties to early fifties, all polite and friendly, and they were all especially fond of their boss’ wife, a very sweet lady who would often come into the office to deliver her husband’s lunch and made sure that the break room was stocked with snacks, tea and instant coffee for the staff.

Fumiyo herself had a part-time job a few days a week after school, working at a small clothing store to help make ends meet, and they saved what money they could afford to put away. Someday they might move into a bigger apartment, and they’d do fun things together on the weekend, because they had weekends now, and he would save up to buy himself a leather jacket and a motorcycle, like a nice big Harley Davidson. With that old noose gone from Taiji’s neck, the siblings grew closer than ever.

“What was she like?” Fumiyo had asked once, some months after they had settled into their new home.

“Who?”

“Kasumi.”

“Oh.” Taiji paused. “Nice. She was nice.”

Fumiyo raised an eyebrow. “Is that all? She’s ‘nice’?”

“Well, she was,” Taiji said defensively, and Fumiyo laughed. “She was nice. Kind of feisty, which I really liked. Everyone around her was so dull, and she was the only one who had a mind of her own. She was really… I dunno, genuine. And generous. She could hold her liquor too, let me tell you.” He stopped suddenly then, feeling embarrassed.

“Do you think you’ll get another girlfriend?” Fumiyo asked.

Taiji gazed down from the balcony at the people on the street. A lot of the pedestrians down below had umbrellas to shade themselves from the worst of the summer heat. A young couple stepped away from an ice cream vendor and the boy offered his girlfriend a taste of his ice cream cone before they made their way across the street, hand in hand. “Maybe. Maybe someone normal next time, not another Yakuza girl.” He eyed his sister sideways. “Why do you ask? Don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”

“No,” Fumiyo said a little too quickly. “Well, I mean, no, but there’s this boy in the year level above me…”

The pair continued chatting and laughing easily, and for years to come, Taiji would remember these as some of the best times of his life.

* * *

Taiji grabbed his threadbare denim jacket from the peg in the staff room, slung it over his shoulder and flipped the lights off on his way out.

“Hurry up,” his boss said gruffly, waving at the door. “I’ve got a cold beer waiting for me at home.”

Taiji grinned and shrugged his jacket on. “Seeya.”

While his boss switched off the foyer lights and locked up the building, Taiji lit a cigarette and gave him one last wave before he started walking home. That was another great thing about this job; it was only a fifteen minute walk from home so he didn’t have to get up extra-early in the morning, and after work he’d still get home at a reasonable hour. It was Fumiyo’s turn to cook tonight and she made a pretty good gyudon. His stomach grumbled at the prospect of a nice warm meal and a quiet evening relaxing in front of the TV with his sister studying in her room.

When he approached their apartment building, he immediately noticed the car parked outside. This in itself wasn’t particularly noteworthy; their neighbours would sometimes have visitors park their cars outside the building, but none of the cars were this nice. This was a very shiny, perfectly-maintained white Mercedes with its engine idling, and there was a guy in a suit sitting in the driver’s seat. Taiji barely had time to feel his heart sinking when he dashed up the stairs and threw the broken door open, where he was seized and forced onto his knees with his arm twisted behind his back and amidst loud voices he heard a woman screaming, “Let them go, Father! This has nothing to do with them!”

Yamashiro ignored his daughter. “Do you know what we do to people who steal from us?”

Taiji gritted his teeth and glanced at Kasumi. She held Fumiyo tightly in her arms. “I didn’t steal anything. I borrowed money and I paid it back by working it off.”

“It was me, it was all me, I took the money! He’s paid his debt, let him go!”

“Did you really think you could just run away and get away with it?” Yamashiro asked. “What makes you think that you’ve paid off your debt?”

A hard fist caught Taiji in the left cheek.

“You steal money from us, you defile my daughter and you think you can just leave?”

Taiji looked the man straight in the eye. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“No, Taiji, this isn’t your fault!” Kasumi cried.

“Shut up,” Yamashiro snarled at her, grabbing her by the hair. “You have done nothing but shame our family. First you consort with a lowlife like him while you are engaged to another, and then you steal money from the Aikawa family and sleep with this man again, as a married woman? Do you know what you’ve done to the company and family relations?”

“We’re not a family, all you’ve done is raise me to be married off to a family that’s richer and better than yours!”

Yamashiro’s face darkened and for a second Taiji thought that he was going to have another outburst and strike Kasumi again. Instead, he stretched out a hand.

“Give me the girl,” he said in a low, soft voice.

Fumiyo started crying and Kasumi’s arms tightened around her. “No!”

“Give her to me.”

“Leave her alone. She’s just a kid, she has nothing to do with this. I told you, I did all of this!”

One of Yamashiro’s men handed him a gun, and he pointed it at Kasumi. “ _Now_.”

“No,” Kasumi spat. “Fuck you.”

The older man’s face was a mask of mild disappointment. “I owe a great debt to the Aikawa family for what you’ve done, Kasumi. I wasn’t sure how I could pay this debt… money seems so cheap.”

A deafening gunshot went off and there was a high-pitched scream; Taiji’s heart clenched and palpitated, his breathing became rapid and shallow, and he broke out in a cold sweat. Yamashiro had shot his daughter. He had killed his own daughter just like that. Fumiyo, too stunned and scared to move or speak, knelt on the floor staring at Kasumi’s prone form, her mouth slack, eyes blank and open, a small, red entry wound just an inch or so below her temple, leaking blood into her hair. Taiji felt cold all over. She was dead. She’d been murdered right in front of him by her father.

All at once, a terrified Fumiyo scrambled backwards away from the body, blundering into one of Yamashiro’s men who hauled her up, kicking and screaming for her brother to help her, even as a strong arm locked around her neck, and Taiji seized his arm to try to free her until the second guy dragged him off and he fought against him in blind desperation, slamming his head backwards and hearing a cry of pain and a satisfying crack of the man’s nose breaking, Fumiyo still screaming until another gunshot went off and she was silent, they’d shot her, they’d shot her too, and Taiji stilled for a heartbeat to see her her head crashing against the low coffee table as she fell, and he had nothing to lose now. He turned on the guy whose nose he’d broken, punched him across the face, snatched the gun out of his holster and fired at point blank, and the guy staggered backwards with a weak wheeze, and dimly Taiji could hear Yamashiro shouting at them to get him and more gunshots going off between them and he burst outside, scrambling down three flights of stairs, trying not to panic as he heard them coming after him and he didn’t even stop to think when he yanked the Merc’s door open and hauled the surprised driver out onto the street, and he’d just put the car into gear when the rear door opened and this time he _did_ panic and he floored it, and the car shuddered and fishtailed— _fuck, the handbrake!_ —and peeled away in a screech of tyres.

Taiji fought desperately to calm his frantic heart. There was too much to process and he was freaking the fuck out. Kasumi had been murdered, Fumiyo too, and now he was properly on the run. If they found him, they would kill him. As useful as it was, he would need to ditch the car soon. So he cruised around until he found a convenience store that was closed, left the Merc in the empty parking lot, tossed the keys in the trash and took off on foot, half-walking, half-jogging, putting as much distance between him and the car as he could.

In the months that followed, Taiji was at his lowest. He had no home, no money, and nobody. He lived alone on the streets of Tateyama, avoiding people and the bigger main streets, constantly on the move, always living in the dark, sleeping in tiny alleys where tired and grumpy restaurant staff came out for their smoke breaks. He’d pick a few pockets or feed off food in dumpsters that convenience stores threw out after they’d passed their expiration date. Most of it was surprisingly good and perfectly edible, as long as it was still enclosed in its wrapper to protect it from the rest of the garbage and filth. He was used to being hungry and tired, but the cold was what got to him the most. Autumn was coming to an end and the nights were very chilly, and all he had were the clothes on his back. He constantly thought of Fumiyo and Kasumi. They were dead because of him, and he would never forget Kasumi’s voice screaming at him to run, or how scared his sister had looked. In the small snatches of clarity in between worrying about being caught, he thought back on the moment he grabbed the gun. That was his first time shooting someone and his prints were probably all over the weapon. Would the police be after him as well as the Yakuza? At least the police were easy to identify on sight, but there were so many salarymen in suits everywhere, any one of them could be Yakuza.

The mob actually managed to find and flush him out, once. He had been tired and weak, and despair weighed heavily on him, and he only managed to escape them by ploughing through a dense peak hour crowd all on their way home from work or going for after work drinks, and ducking into a department store. He had stayed locked up in a cubicle in the women’s restroom with his feet tucked up for god knows how long, his blood rushing and pounding through his ears, his throat dry and raw, his breathing heavy and ragged even as he kept his face pressed into the crook of his arm to muffle the noise. His heart jumped horribly every time the door to the ladies’ opened. Each time he heard women’s voices, the distinctive clack-clack of their high-heeled shoes, vacant cubicle doors clattering shut. No men’s voices, and nobody seemed to pay any attention to the occupied stall in which he hid. Still, this encounter left him more nervous than ever. Yamashiro clearly had his men combing the city looking for him, and he knew that eventually there would come a time when he would fall into their hands.

Three days had scarcely passed when they found him again and he ran, he ran with his heart bursting from fear and exhaustion, his throat and lungs burned and his legs began to tire, and still he ran, barely seeing where he was going, scrambling across the road ahead of the glare of car headlights and blaring horns, cutting a corner where he collided into someone so hard that they both went crashing to the ground.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he spluttered, scrambling back up.

The man he’d crashed into got to his feet and dusted himself off, and Taiji felt another keen stab of despair. He was another one of _them_ : well-dressed, his light brown, almost blond hair impeccably styled (slightly less so after the accident), and he adjusted the dark glasses that had been knocked askew, because of course a pretentious asshole from the mob would fucking wear sunglasses at night.

Two other men that Taiji hadn’t noticed approached the blond man; one of them had long, curly hair and looked vaguely like a Japanese Jimmy Page or maybe Slash from Guns N’ Roses, and the other had short, dark hair. The latter glanced at Taiji with a frown before turning his attention back to his boss.

“Are you all right, Yoshiki?”


	12. Chapter 12

“Are you all right, Yoshiki?”

The wealthy-looking man, Yoshiki, rubbed his shoulder with a soft grunt. “Yes.”

Taiji’s head snapped up; he heard approaching voices and turned on his heel to run, but the dark-haired man seized his arm and held him fast.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the man snapped.

Tugging at his arm, Taiji looked over the guy’s shoulder in panic and opened his mouth to protest, but it was too late. Those two Yakuza guys were upon him already.

“Hand him over,” the first guy demanded gruffly. “He’s ours. It’s none of your business so don’t get involved.”

Yoshiki shifted his gaze to Taiji. The man was a portrait of desperation and hardship: filthy, thin and haggard, obviously cold and starving, probably homeless as well. He cast a keen eye over the tattoos that showed in the holes in his sleeves. They were distinctly unlike the tattoos that Yakuza members bore.

“Are you one of them?” Yoshiki asked.

Taiji shook his head hard. “No,” he panted. “Not them. Not Yakuza.”

The two Yakuza men were getting rowdy and impatient.

“This man has a price on his head!”

“Better hand him over or there’ll be trouble!”

Yoshiki raised his eyebrows a fraction. “He says he isn’t one of you.”

“He’s a liar and a thief!” The second guy made a move towards Yoshiki and froze when the long-haired man pointed a gun in his face and cocked the hammer with ease.

“Back off, buddy,” he said. There was an air of calm, almost lazy confidence about him, and it occurred to Taiji that this Japanese Jimmy Page knew his way around a gun, and the two Yakuza guys balked as well. They were low-ranking and unarmed. They had orders to follow, but they weren’t ready to deal with an armed rival. They exchanged an uneasy glance.

“Let’s go,” the first one muttered to his companion, and they skulked away with their tails tucked between their legs.

Taiji stared after them, open-mouthed.

“Nice one, Pata,” said the dark-haired man, and Jimmy Page—‘Pata’—tucked his gun away with an expression of mild detachment.

“It’s fine, Toshi,” said Yoshiki. “You can let him go.”

The man called Toshi looked sceptical but he released his grip on Taiji’s arm and took a step back to show that he wasn’t a threat. When Yoshiki beckoned with a wave of his hand, Taiji felt compelled to follow the crew who had just saved his neck from the mob, and after three or four blocks they stopped next to an imposingly luxurious car with a distinctive chrome hood ornament.

Toshi caught Yoshiki’s eye first, then Taiji’s and tilted his head towards the car. “Go on. Get in.”

Taiji did not get into the car and eyed the three men warily. Instead of repeating himself, however, Toshi just laughed. “Gee, you must be someone big to get kidnapped in a Rolls-Royce. Do you want to get those Yakuza guys off your tail or what?”

Even the corner of Yoshiki’s lips twitched up. Taiji blinked, glanced at the car and back at Yoshiki, Toshi and Pata, feeling rather foolish, and Toshi opened the rear passenger door.

* * *

Sitting inside the Rolls-Royce, Taiji felt wary and self-conscious. This car was far nicer than Kasumi’s BMW by miles and it felt wrong for someone like him to be sitting in a car like this. He glanced over to his right. Pata had been quiet so far but he looked relaxed around Yoshiki and Toshi. They were obviously hiding something; they weren’t just any ordinary wealthy citizens who had just decided to help out a homeless guy on the run from the Yakuza. Somehow, though, Taiji felt that he could trust Pata and, watching the guy sitting in his seat, slightly slouched, Taiji decided to follow his lead.

At the front of the car, Yoshiki and Toshi ignored Taiji completely, just talking amongst themselves in brief snatches about things that he didn’t understand and names that he didn’t know. Occasionally they’d address Pata, who would answer with a grunt or a couple of words. This suited Taiji just fine; being ignored was the best thing that had happened to him in a very long time. The only time anyone paid any attention to him during the long ride was when Pata gave his arm a little tap to offer him a cigarette with that same slightly bored expression that Taiji had now decided was Pata’s normal face. He hesitantly accepted the treat and the two of them quietly smoked in the back with the car windows rolled down. At one point they drove past a group of five or six men who looked like Yakuza; they carried themselves in that overconfident, thuggish manner, and there was one heavyset guy who was practically wearing the uniform, clad in a black suit paired with a maroon satin shirt. The first few buttons of his shirt had been left undone, showing off the gaudy gold chains he wore around his neck, and his hair was carefully slicked back with gel. Taiji shrank down in his seat and wound his window back up, but nobody so much as looked in their direction and the Rolls-Royce cruised through town without incident.

Yoshiki was heading north-west into Tokyo and amongst their conversation, a certain name kept cropping up, something about paying respects and building connections with a person called Morrie. Paying respects? Had someone died? Yoshiki _did_ kind of look like he was dressed for a funeral. Taiji did his best to pretend that he wasn’t listening, but with the casual way that Yoshiki and Toshi spoke, it didn’t seem like they cared if he heard or not. So he kept quiet and gazed out the window. He was still on the run but that felt like it was on hold for the moment and he was being whisked away on a late-night funeral as part of some lucid acid trip, and he allowed himself to enjoy the sights as they rolled into the capital. Buildings towered above them, lights flashed and pulsed, and then everything went dark as the car descended into a dim underground parking lot. Bewildered, Taiji looked this way and that, making sure to keep an eye on Pata. The long-haired man remained relaxed until the car was parked, and when he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out, Taiji followed suit.

Yoshiki glanced at his watch. “Shit, we’re late.”

“Yes, because you’re always _so_ punctual,” Toshi said dryly.

“Um,” Taiji mumbled. “What should I…?”

“You should stick with us for now.” Yoshiki smoothed the lapels of his jacket, shot his cuffs and set off at a brisk pace, and as they passed through the doors Taiji looked up at the sign: DEAD END.

Dead End was an elegantly-furnished bar with dark hardwood floors and lit with understated sconces along the walls. It looked like a jazz bar but Taiji heard hard rock music playing faintly in the background, the singer whispering and crooning in a haunting falsetto. If the Devil had a waiting room, Taiji imagined it might look something like this.

Yoshiki asked Pata to take him aside, and Taiji was brought to a couple of empty seats at the bar. He looked over his shoulder. At the other end of the room was a booth where another man sat with one hand loosely wrapped around the stem of a wine glass. He was flanked by two more men and as Yoshiki and Toshi approached, one of them stepped forward to intercept them. The first man rose from his seat and they exchanged bows. With his angular cheekbones and an intense frown, he looked like the kind of guy that people would be afraid to say no to. He could tell someone to strangle a puppy or push their grandma in front of a bus, and they would do it. Was this the Morrie they kept talking about in the car?

They were just talking, though, and Taiji soon grew tired of watching them. He turned back around. Pata was just sitting there watching other people, his face blank.

“So, um…” Taiji fidgeted with his hands, pressing his fingertips together and cracking his knuckles one by one. “What do you guys do?”

Shrug.

“How did you get those Yakuza guys to back off like that?”

“Too risky.”

“Why are we here?”

“Business meeting.”

“What kind of business meeting?” Taiji glanced over his shoulder. The others were still talking, but this time Morrie shot a cursory look in their direction. The rest of the bar patrons were keeping to themselves, either blissfully unaware of the shady business deal going on, or doing a great job at ignoring it.

But Pata only responded with another apathetic shrug and posed a question of his own: “What kinda music do you like?”

“What? Uh. I dunno. Rock ‘n’ roll. Heavy metal. That kind of thing.”

“You like KISS?”

“Who doesn’t?”

Pata finally met his gaze and cracked a smile. He waved at a bartender. “Two beers, please.”

  
  


“Thanks again for taking the time to meet us,” Yoshiki said. “It’s a great honour, and you have a beautiful establishment here. I think someday I’d like to run a place like this, myself.”

“You’re too kind.” Morrie took a sip of his wine and slowly set the glass down. “If I might make a suggestion?”

“By all means.”

“You should make contact with a man named Sakurai Atsushi. He owns a fair portion of Gunma Prefecture. He would be a valuable partner and ally to have.”

Yoshiki inclined his head in thanks. “I’ll be sure to get in touch with him.”

There was a pause while a waiter approached their booth with a bottle of wine. Morrie nodded his thanks when his glass was refilled, but Yoshiki pushed his own wine glass away and shook his head politely. The waiter refilled Toshi's glass, bowed, and left.

Morrie fixed Yoshiki with a calculating look. “I understand that you used to work with one Camui Gackt.”

“Yes, that’s true. We are… no longer business partners.”

“May I ask how?”

Yoshiki paused. “He blew an assignment,” he said guardedly. “He died for it.”

“Ah.” Morrie appeared neither pleased nor displeased with this information. Instead, he turned his attention to Taiji. “Is he one of your men as well?”

“No. But maybe I can use him. We ran into him on our way here from Chiba,” Yoshiki said. “Or he ran into us. He has the Yakuza after him.”

“Really? Who, and why?”

“We haven’t spoken with him yet.”

Yoshiki called out Pata’s name and Taiji jerked away like a startled rabbit when the man touched his arm and motioned for him to follow.

“Bring your beer,” Pata said.

Gulping, Taiji scrambled off his barstool, almost spilling his beer as he went. Pata squeezed into the booth next to Toshi but someone had to fetch an extra chair for Taiji. It was an absurd sight, three men crammed into one side of the leather and hardwood booth while the other side seated only one. Certainly nobody was stupid enough to expect the man of the house to scoot over.

“Wine?” Morrie asked.

Without waiting for Pata or Taiji to answer, one of Morrie’s bodyguards waved that same waiter over, and two more wine glasses were brought over and filled.

“Please. It’s on the house,” Morrie said pleasantly.

Feeling very out of place in more ways than one, Taiji waited for Pata to drink first before touching his own glass. He didn’t know much about wine but this had to be some expensive shit. It was completely wasted on him but he was loath to offend his hosts by turning it down, especially someone like Morrie. One look at the man said that he could order someone’s murder as easily as one rolls up to the drive-thru to order a hamburger and fries. His face had been carefully sculpted into a permanent scowl and he sat bolt upright like he had a broomstick jammed up his—

“I’d like you to meet Morrie. He’s a very important and powerful figure and we can learn a lot from him,” Yoshiki said pointedly. “Morrie, this is Pata, and…?”

“Oh, um—” Taiji hastily put down his drink and tipped his head in a bow. “Sawada Taiji, sir.”

“Pleased to meet you both,” said Morrie in that same charming tone. He folded his hands around the base of his wine glass and looked straight at Taiji. “I hear that you’re in some trouble with the Yakuza.”

Taiji glanced at Yoshiki. “Uh. Yes, sir.”

“Do you know which family it is?”

Taiji gulped. “Yamashiro in Chiba. Sir. I… I fell into a gambling debt with one of their guys and they blackmailed me into working for them to pay it back. Sir.”

Yoshiki raised his eyebrows. “Is that all?”

“No.” He felt very small. “I was… sleeping with his daughter.”

Not a word was said in response to this, but the knowing glance that was shared around the table said plenty.

“She wanted to pay my debt but I said no. When they found out about us, she stole money from her husband to help me and my sister leave town to get away from them. They hunted us down.” Taiji lowered his voice. “They were murdered. Kasumi, and my sister Fumiyo.”

Morrie leaned back in his seat a little. He appeared satisfied with this answer somehow, and even Yoshiki and Toshi were nodding.

“Do you have any other family?” Morrie asked.

Taiji shook his head.

“That’s a shame about your sister,” Yoshiki said.

It was more than a goddamn shame, Taiji thought, but he kept quiet. There were enough people pissed off with him as it was and he didn’t need to add to that list.

“Yes, I can see why they’d be hunting you down,” Morrie said, casting a critical eye over Taiji. “You fucked up. So did the daughter. That was a stupid thing to do.”

_Thanks_. Taiji kept his eyes down, staring into his wine glass.

Morrie went on. “But I wonder if you can work out a compromise.”

“What do you think, Morrie?” Yoshiki asked.

“My guess is this is beyond money, but this Yamashiro has already killed his own daughter, as well as this man’s only family, and driven him out of house and home. Just look at him.” Morrie’s severe expression softened just a little. “Anything can be bargained with.”


	13. Chapter 13

Yoshiki’s home was huge. Anyone could tell by the way he dressed that he was rich, even without having seen his car, but now it was clear that he was _very_ rich. What was his background? Was he Yakuza too? They didn’t look like Yakuza though, didn’t operate like the mob so far as Taiji could tell. The house itself was fairly old, probably from the 20s or 30s. Did Yoshiki come from old money? That was probably the most likely explanation.

“It belonged to my parents.” Yoshiki must have caught him staring with his mouth hanging open. He didn’t volunteer any more information than this.

While he looked around the spacious, well-lit lounge room with its thick carpet and velvety curtains, Yoshiki took Pata and Toshi aside for a quiet word. Taiji deliberately avoided looking at them. He didn’t want to give the impression that he might be trying to eavesdrop on a private conversation. Presently Yoshiki raised his voice a little more.

“Pata, get him a room and some clothes. He looks like he could use a shower and sleep.”

Yoshiki and Toshi disappeared into different parts of the house, and Pata wandered up beside Taiji. “C’mon.”

Taiji followed his new friend down the hallway and was shown to a room. Did they all live here?

“Ensuite’s that way. Towels in the cupboard.” He looked at Taiji as though to make sure that he understood. “Go take a shower. I’ll get you some clothes.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Taiji wandered about the room, touching things very lightly: a bedpost, the corner of the wardrobe, the back of a chair that stood by the window. The door to the ensuite was ajar; he pushed it open and flipped the lights on. A cupboard stood in the corner and he opened one side of the twin doors gingerly. Inside were the usual things you’d find in a bathroom: neatly-folded, dove grey towels, rolls of plush toilet paper arranged into a little pyramid, a few bars of soap individually wrapped in delicate washi paper, bottles of shampoo and conditioner and hand lotion, all rose-scented. That Yoshiki must really love roses, Taiji thought to himself. It looked more like a hotel than a room in somebody’s home. He took one of the towels and hung it on the brass towel rail, and closed and locked the bathroom door.

Taiji emerged from a long hot shower feeling warm and relaxed and smelling faintly of roses. It was amazing how renewed he felt just having had a good wash for the first time in… it must have been only a few months, he realised. With a towel knotted around his waist, he padded across the room, relishing the plush carpet underfoot. As promised, a little pile of clothes had been left for him. He held up the faded black Guns N’ Roses t-shirt and grinned.

As soon as he set foot into the lounge room, freshly showered and dressed, he saw Pata sitting on the sofa snacking from a tray of food on the glass coffee table.

“Sit. Eat.”

Taiji slowly sat down next to him. It looked like fancy izakaya food: there was a bowl of soba with some dipping sauce, another bowl of pickled cucumber and daikon radish, and a piece of seared eel sitting on a bed of flash-fried lotus root, and a fresh bottle of beer.

“This? Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” said Pata. In his hand was a glass of whisky. “Toshi had Mrs Goto make it for you.”

It took a long time for Taiji to fall asleep. On a conscious level he knew that he was ‘safe’, at least for now, but his brain remained alert to any noises or movement in his environment. A tree stood outside his window and it scratched at the glass in a stiff breeze, but in his mind it was someone breaking in. When he finally did drift off, he slept fitfully, waking up several times throughout the night.

* * *

Taiji was only allowed into certain areas of the house, mainly the huge lounge room and the bedroom that he’d been given, and Pata was never far from sight. He even occupied the room next to Taiji’s. Whenever Taiji happened to wake up during the night, he could hear Pata’s snoring right through the wall. He suspected that Yoshiki had asked Pata to keep an eye on him in case he went snooping around, not that he entertained any thoughts of doing so. He had no idea what their plans were for him, but he was damn well going to be on his best behaviour for the guys who had saved his worthless neck. Besides, he sort of enjoyed Pata’s quiet company, although he was getting pretty tired of the man’s perfunctory one- and two-word responses to his questions.

The kitchen wasn’t off limits but there was a portly, grey-haired woman—Mrs Goto, he guessed—who guarded the area rigorously. Yoshiki liked everything to be just so, Pata said, so if they wanted anything from the kitchen, they were supposed to ask her. Not that Pata cared to follow the rules himself.

“Who is she, anyway?” Taiji asked after he watched Pata fetch a couple of beers from the fridge while the little old woman barked at him to get out and became annoyed when Pata just laughed at her.

“Yoshiki’s housekeeper.” Pata popped the tops off the beers and handed one to Taiji.

“What about when Yoshiki needs to cook something?”

Pata gave him a mild, confused look as though he weren’t sure what language Taiji was speaking, and walked away.

Taiji only ever saw Toshi at mealtimes, and he never saw Yoshiki at all, although he would occasionally hear very faint piano music wafting through the house. At first he thought Mrs Goto had the radio on a classical music station, until he heard piano music when he got up in the middle of the night to pee, and realised that Yoshiki was the mystery musician.

“Where’s Yoshiki?” Taiji asked the next day.

“Working.”

He watched Pata sit down and begin to dismantle a handgun. “You really know what you’re doing, huh?”

“Yep.”

Taiji sighed.

It wasn’t until the fourth day that Yoshiki finally emerged and asked to speak with Taiji alone. He was brought upstairs to a large room where a baby grand piano sat by the balcony window, and Yoshiki carefully poured two cups of oolong tea. He set the heavy teapot down. “Tell me about yourself.”

“What do you want to know?”

Yoshiki spread his hands. “Anything and everything you’d like to tell me.”

While Taiji spoke, Yoshiki only offered the occasional nod or murmur to indicate that he was listening, not wishing to interrupt. By the time Taiji had finished his tale of things going from bad to worse, the teapot had been refilled and the dregs had gone cold, loose tea leaves floating gently at the bottom. Taiji was taken back downstairs and the other three said nothing beyond asking Taiji to get into the Rolls. They cruised through the heart of Chiba City and pulled into the multi-level parking lot of the biggest sports facility in the city - another ‘business meeting’, he guessed. Taiji looked over at Pata. He was as relaxed as he ever was, gazing out the window, completely unconcerned.

Taiji looked this way and that as he followed the trio through to the lower levels of the stadium, towards the reserved section. Were they really going to have a meeting in the middle of such a huge and noisy sumo tournament? He nearly bumped into Pata when they stopped, and then Taiji went cold all over.

“Good afternoon,” Toshi was saying to a guy in a suit. “May we speak with Yamashiro?”

The guy eyed Toshi warily. “Who’s asking?”

Yoshiki spoke up. “We have someone he might want.”

Taiji bristled. His blood fucking boiled. He wanted to scream and fight. _You were supposed to be the good guys!_ Why had they looked after him if they were just going to deliver him back into the lion’s den?

Something about Taiji’s body language caught Pata’s eye, for he gave Taiji a look: stay quiet. The Yakuza guy looked at each of them in turn and his eyes narrowed slightly when his gaze settled on Taiji. Taiji swallowed the lump in his throat. He hoped Pata still had that gun on him.

Only Yoshiki was permitted inside the reserved area and Taiji watched out of the corner of his eye as he smiled and shook hands with Yamashiro and an older man he didn’t recognise. Yamashiro peered over Yoshiki’s shoulder at one point and Taiji glared back. Presently there was a lot of nodding and the occupants of the reserved seats got up.

_What’s going on?_ Taiji wanted to ask, but at the same time he didn’t want to know. Nobody spoke as the group made their way back up the stadium steps and through a maze of concrete corridors, away from the noise, finally settling on a door marked ‘Boardroom’.

Yamashiro grunted as he sank into one of the high-backed, faux-leather chairs surrounding the boardroom table. “Well? Are you expecting a reward for bringing this trash back to me?”

“Not at all,” Yoshiki said. “As I mentioned on the phone with you the other day, this man fully recognises his crimes, however the punishments you’ve already dealt to the guilty seems more than sufficient.”

“I’ll decide what’s sufficient.”

“Your daughter is dead for her crimes, sir,” Yoshiki said archly. “I’d say that’s punishment enough. And you’ve also killed this man’s only family, his sister, seventeen…?”

“Sixteen,” Toshi corrected.

“Yes, sixteen years old.”

Taiji gaped. How could they have known that? He was certain that he hadn’t told them how old Fumiyo was.

“You’ve stripped him of his family and his life. He has nothing. I urge you to move on. He’s our man now.”

“He owes us a debt for bringing shame to my family, and to the Aikawa family. I cannot simply let him leave.” Yamashiro gestured to the wiry older man sitting at his left. Taiji swallowed. So that was Aikawa Senior. “I don’t know you, Hayashi, but I want to believe that you wouldn’t deny me my pound of flesh.”

“He’s right, Yamashiro,” said Aikawa. “You’ve already killed your daughter and this man’s young sister. What more do you want?”

Yamashiro stood and bowed deeply. “With all due respect, Aikawa, I don’t believe the appropriate punishment has been dealt to the guilty.”

“Fine, fine.” Aikawa waved a hand dismissively. “Take a knife and get it over with, then.”

Taiji’s blood ran cold. _A knife?_

Behind his dark glasses, Yoshiki’s expression was difficult to read. At length, his lips parted and he paused for a second before he spoke: “Very well.”

Two of Yamashiro’s men seized an arm each, dragging Taiji before the two oyabuns, and for the first time he didn’t have the will to fight back. Even when he was on the run and homeless on the streets of Tateyama, haunted by the memories of Fumiyo and Kasumi, he hadn’t felt as helpless and defeated as he did now. As thin as it was, he still had hope then. Two more men restrained him, and his right hand was forced onto the table and held down upon a white cloth with his fingers splayed.

He watched the entire thing happen, couldn’t force himself to look away, but whenever he thought back on this moment he could never again picture it or even recall the searing pain when the blade sawed through his finger and bit through bone. He would, however, always remember seeing the bloody, severed digit with a little white protrusion of bone being gathered up on the white cloth. His mind went straight to a trivial memory from his childhood: he had been very young, only just tall enough to look over the kitchen counter, watching his mother preparing dinner while his baby sister fussed in the background. A raw chicken sat on the chopping board, comically macabre with its white, wrinkly, bumpy skin clinging to the carcass like somebody wearing a thin, baggy sweater that was slightly too big for them, and he had watched, fascinated as his mother grasped a drumstick firmly and twisted it off with a sickening crack. In that moment, kneeling on the carpeted floor with Yamashiro in front of him and Yoshiki behind him, that memory was all that Taiji could think about: the pale, slightly bloody knob of bone jutting from the raw chicken’s torn limb.

One of Yamashiro’s men presented his severed finger first to Aikawa and then Yamashiro with a deep bow, both hands outstretched. The hands holding Taiji down gave way and he staggered backwards a couple of steps before falling to his knees, staring at his mangled, bleeding finger in disbelief. In the background he could faintly hear Yoshiki saying something.

“Well? Are you happy?”

Yamashiro looked down his nose. “And the money?”

“It is my understanding,” Yoshiki said slowly and with a hint of impatience. “That he had every intention of paying back the loan during his time as an employee. The fault lies with your daughter for stealing from Aikawa. These are two separate issues. Sawada has paid his debt by working it off. Your daughter has paid for her debt with her life.”

“I still need some form of recompense to present to Aikawa here,” Yamashiro said tersely.

“You have it.”

“A fingertip?” Yamashiro sneered. “Please. If it were his head, then we could talk.”

Taiji broke out in a cold sweat and craned his neck back to watch Yoshiki reaching into his suit jacket. Was he reaching for a gun or…? But what Yoshiki withdrew from his inner suit pocket was a bundle of crisp notes secured with a band of white paper around the middle. He handed this to the Yakuza member closest to him, who in turn bowed and presented it to Yamashiro in the same reverent manner that the severed digit had been handled. Yamashiro eyed Yoshiki suspiciously and leafed through the notes, counting the money, turning the bundle over and counting again just to be sure.

Yoshiki raised his chin slightly with an air of disdain. “One and a half million. More than enough.”

“Just take the money and let them go, I’m sick of this bullshit,” old Aikawa grunted, getting out of his chair.

Yamashiro fixed Taiji and Yoshiki with a hard stare, a heavy frown darkening his brow, his lips pressed into a firm line. “Get out.”

Yoshiki returned this with a smarmy smile. “Pleasure doing business with you, sir.”

They made it back to the car unmolested and in silence, save for Taiji’s shallow, panicked breathing. Pata opened the car door for Taiji to get in, and when Taiji looked up he saw Yoshiki getting into the back seat with him. “Keep tight pressure on your hand. Toshi, get us to the hospital.”

* * *

Taiji opened his eyes and lay there staring at the wall for a minute before leaping up and scrambling to the bathroom where he skidded to his knees in front of the toilet. His stomach roiled and clenched and twisted, and he brought up sour bile. Even though he was breathing through his mouth, the offending smell made him feel sicker and his eyes watered as he coughed and retched. Once he was sure he was done, he flushed and reached for the bathroom sink… and paused. He was in a hospital room and the middle finger on his right hand was neatly taped up with gauze. He moved his hand about, looking at the dressing from both sides before dipping his head to wash the taste of vomit out of his mouth.

“You okay?” Pata had poked his head into his room. “I heard you puking.”

Taiji slowly wiped his mouth with the back of his good hand. “Yeah. Felt sick.”

“I guess the painkillers or whatever disagreed with you.” The man looked sympathetic. “How’s the hand?”

“Just fucking great,” Taiji growled in a low voice, pushing past Pata with his good hand. “Considering Yoshiki let those fucking bastards fucking cut a piece off me.”

“Hey, wait—”

“Where is Yoshiki?”

“Somewhere here.”

“Get him over here _now_.”

Sitting on a plastic chair just outside the room, Toshi closed his magazine and stood face to face with Taiji. “Hey. Calm down and shut up.”

“ _You_ fucking calm down! Why did you just stand there and let them do that? I thought you were on my side!”

“We _are_ on your side.”

“Then what—”

“Look, I don’t think you quite understand the gravity of the situation here,” Toshi snapped. “The only reason you’re alive is because of Yoshiki.”

“Bullshit—”

“You do realise that Yamashiro wanted to kill you, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“But nothing! Yeah you had a piece of your finger cut off and that’s fucking shitty, but you walked out of there on your own two feet, didn’t you? You think you could have done that without us, without Yoshiki’s help? Go on, talk to Yamashiro, see how far that gets you.” Toshi stepped back and stretched out an arm, inviting Taiji to leave the safety of the hospital.

Taiji stopped. He looked at Toshi and back down at his hand. It throbbed dully, like it was badly bruised, but even though the painkillers had probably worn off by now, it honestly didn’t hurt as much as he thought it might. The general area felt very sore and when he tried moving the finger, the pain flared and the throbbing radiated up his arm, but that was about it. It _was_ shitty, and nobody was denying that, but he was standing here, wasn’t he?

He sank into one of the beige plastic chairs. The pieces were slowly coming together but they still didn’t fit - not quite.

“So why did you help me, then?”

“I’m looking for a few good men.” It was Yoshiki, standing there in his expensive suit and sunglasses. Did he seriously wear those all the time?

“But… I’m nobody.” Taiji frowned, trying to make sense of it all. “I’m not rich or powerful. I didn’t even finish high school. I’m as plain as mud. You don’t know me, how could—”

“I think I have a fair grasp of your character.” Yoshiki’s face was neutral but his tone was kind. “Would you like to join us?”

“I…” Taiji hesitated to collect his thoughts. “What do you even _do?_ ”

“I think you’ll fit right in, given your background.”

“My background?”

“Yes. Well, what do you say?”

Another pause. “Do I have a choice?”

“Why?” Yoshiki asked crisply. “Do you have something better waiting for you?”

Taiji looked down at his hand, then back up at the three men standing around him.

“Three years,” Yoshiki said. “Give me three years. After that, you can choose to leave or stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Yakuza like to chop off the first and second joints of the pinkie and ring finger, but since Taiji was actually missing the end of his right middle finger due to a childhood accident, well... :)


	14. Epilogue

**TOKYO, 3 YEARS LATER**

Taiji stopped and stared dubiously. “Really? Here?”

Pata brushed past him. “Come on, man.”

Shrugging, Taiji followed Pata, Yoshiki, Toshi and hide inside an antique store in Ginza. The store’s customers—mostly very wealthy middle-aged women wearing lots of gold and pearls and very heavy, overly-sweet perfume—gave them very odd looks but they paid them no heed as they continued down a flight of steep stairs.

“This is the place,” Yoshiki said, pushing a heavy wooden door open and flipping the light switch. The lights gave a few weak flickers before illuminating the space in a warm glow.

His intention was to turn this into a bar; not any cheap place that you’d find in Shinjuku Golden Gai where jaded salarymen went to avoid their families and moan about their bosses and drink insipid, watery beer, but a proper drinking establishment not unlike Morrie’s. This place was a little run-down but they could see what Yoshiki was going for.

Taiji made his way further inside the building. The old, warped floorboards squeaked beneath his feet. There was a corridor with an office off to one side and an open storage area, and at the very end were two staircases: one that went back up to street level, guarded by a heavy steel door, and another staircase that went even further down. He flipped the light switch a couple of times but the descending staircase stayed dark. Something small scuttled down there; mice or roaches, he guessed. He retreated back to the main room.

“It needs some TLC,” Toshi was saying. “We could build the bar and shelves right over here, buy some nice furnishings, have the floor sanded back and polished, maybe get a few plants for a bit of greenery and colour—”

“I have some that we can use,” hide volunteered.

“Yeah, and then what happens when your hollyhocks kill someone?”

hide put his hands on his hips and frowned at Toshi. “They’re _hellebores_ and you’re not supposed to eat them, dummy. Who the hell looks at a fucking pot plant and goes, ‘Ooh yeah, I’ll have a mouthful of that’?”

Taiji ignored them. “What are you going to call it, Yoshiki?”

“Does it really have to have a name?” Pata asked.

“A bar has to have a name,” Taiji said. “A good, solid name, not something pretentious like, I dunno… Art of Life.”

Yoshiki smiled a little at that. Taiji had a unique way of cutting through all the bullshit. “Well, what would you suggest?”

Taiji shoved his hands into his pockets and roamed about the room in a wide circle, looking this way and that, imagining how this space would look once it was properly outfitted with a bar with rows of shelving behind the counter, dozens of bottles of whiskeys and spirits and liqueurs glittering under the soft house lights, tables and chairs occupied with customers like a scene from a 1930s gangster movie. A tiny hint of a smile played at the corner of his lips.

“How about The Underneath?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Taiji for being so good to work with! This story was an absolute breeze that practically wrote itself in under 6 weeks from February to April 2020 (helloooo Covid-lockdown!) and after all the trouble that _Extasy_ and _Wasted Time_ gave me, it was exhilarating to be able to sit down and see the story taking shape before my eyes. I hope you enjoyed the story even if our favourite lads Heath and Sugizo aren’t in it, and we can come to understand how and why Taiji is such a cranky old bastard that I can’t help but love!


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